Send message to Author

Short abstract:

Data infrastructures are a core component of understanding social change. Thus, the paper focuses on a case study in a primary care unit, exploring the new territorial organization that becomes crucial for the construction of a public health data infrastructure that allows personalized interventions

Long abstract:

Data infrastructures are transforming state-citizen relations through the logic of personalized risk and the individualization of social problems. This paper focuses on a case study in a primary care unit in Italy called Community House, which started in 2023 and is ongoing as part of a larger research project AUTOWELF. The aim of the paper is twofold: to explore the transformation of the local dimension of territorial care with the introduction of a new concept of community that recognizes the values of social ties and enhances relational resources, while simultaneously, new territorial organization becomes crucial for the construction of a public health data-based infrastructure that allows personalized interventions. This mode of framing the local level is assisted by the new use of technology and ICT systems, which are closely linked and play a key role in enhancing the managerial logic and strategies in shaping public administration and the reorganization of healthcare. This contributes to a significant change in universal healthcare interventions and is connected to the concept of the datafication of health and "personalized medicine", which focus on the individual as a precise standard. Based on a qualitative study of document analysis and semi-structured interviews, the analysis will focus on the development of a decision support system for the Chronic Care Model as an attempt to shed light on the experiences and challenges of how algorithms that are implemented for the decision-making process are both contributing to changing the type of bureaucracy and the discretionary capabilities of professionals.