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Paper short abstract:

We reflect in this paper on the relation between care innovation, family configurations and new modes of community participation and citizenship. We argue that contemporary telecare innovations script new modes of citizenship not only for the patient herself, but also for the family and carers.

Paper long abstract:

This paper highlights how changes in citizen participation in health care can be understood in relation to the reconfigurations of the patient and of the family within socio-technical environments. We used meta-ethnography to conduct a synthesis of 15 papers reporting qualitative research on our topic. The empirical examples illuminate how patients and their families are configured and reconfigured in practical arrangements of human actors, new telecare technologies and emerging discourses of citizenship and participation in health care. We found that telecare innovations in practice rely on existing networks of carers who are co-present with the patient, and that can be mobilized in instances of uncertainty. Further we observed that parents as carers displayed their competence in health information processing through their participation with health technologies. Based on the empirical findings from the literature we reflect in this paper on the relation between telecare innovations, family configurations and new modes of community participation and citizenship. We argue that contemporary telecare innovations script new modes of citizenship not only for the patient herself, but also for the family and carers.