Group of workers on a hospital ward nursing staff. Also other workers based elsewhere within the hospital, but with work responsibilities on the ward directorate manager, physiotherapists, occupational therapists. Focus on the public display located in a staff area away from the fully open and public ward areas:
<sum> The Beds Board
The beds board represents the beds availability status on the ward at any given time. The beds board represents the total ward area, with each ward bay (usually comprising six beds) marked separately. Each bed is indicated by a metal slot where a card, with the patients details, can be placed. Cards that have been placed straight into the slots represent existing in-patients. Cards placed diagonally in the slots represent patients due to be discharged, pending a visit by social services, a consultant, the physiotherapist etc. The presence of diagonally placed cards gives a more precise representation of availability than a simple head count. The directorate manager can discuss available beds with the ward sister, who explains the expected time/date of discharge for the diagonals.
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Configuration and affordances of setting and artefacts
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Coordination is achieved through interaction between staff and concomitant orientation to the public artefact of the beds board. Different staff in this setting - the directorate manager, the ward manager - have varying degrees of understanding about the information contained in the public artefact. Co-ordination between the workers involved is therefore required in order to fully asceratin the implications of, for example, slanted cards on th beds borad that indicate patiets who are due to be discharged but have been delayed for some reason.
Inter-orgnisational group of workers in a hospital.
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