Paper short abstract:

Providing WhatsApp access implies extra time and effort from health practitioners. This paper discusses this dilemma and presents examples on how WhatsApp can positively impact health and care practices considering the perspective of nurses, doctors and patients in the health ecosystem in Sao Paulo.

Paper long abstract:

WhatsApp has been largely appropriated for health and care purposes in Sao Paulo. Institutions started providing services based on the app in order to optimize resources. In these cases, nurses assume a key role in the interaction with patient in order to save time spent with doctors. But there are also the cases, mainly for those working in independent offices, when doctors are directly requested to provide their WhatsApp. While some consider this kind of support as an unpaid work, others prioritize its benefits for patients.

This paper addresses this discussion considering both perspective: from health practitioners and patients. It brings examples of WhatsApp best practices for Health in Sao Paulo and highlights how WhatsApp is perceived as a distinction factor by patients in their consumption of health services and how they behave to preserve this channel of communication when it is provided. Ethnography conducted with older people in Sao Paulo shows a concern to not to burden the doctors. For this reason, patients start using WhatsApp to ask their doctors and nurses friends and friends of friends to seek for health advice. This practice creates informal health networks, mediated by WhatsApp, that work in the renegotiation of resources and time in the Health ecosystem in Sao Paulo.