Paper short abstract:

This paper explores implications for older patients of the convergence in Japan of integrated or ‘total’ healthcare with the digiization of medical and health data, by examining a co-research project with nurses to design improved electronic medical records and the service of providing ‘care’.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores implications for older patients of the convergence in Japan of integrated or 'total' healthcare with the digiization of medical and health data by examining a co-research project with nurses to design improved electronic medical records and the service of providing 'care'.

Japan is well-known to be in demographic crisis with an ageing population leading to a 'super-aged' society of people with a variety of age-related health issues (Muromatsu & Akiyama, 2011). A lack of professional carers coinciding with reluctance toward and difficulty of immigration, means that current healthcare practices drastically need to change.

A proposed solution to these problems given by the government and medical researchers in Japan has been integrated or 'total' healthcare—a rethinking of medical and care practice to keep older patients in their communities and a focus on the quality of life of 'old-old' patients (Arai et al, 2015). Another response pushed by the government and industry is the development and integration of digital data and robotics into hospitals, care facilities and these communities.

This paper explores the construction and use of data on patients by nurses, examining the practical, accomplished actions of 'caring' through their use of an assemblage of noting technologies. The paper examines how these technologies present different images of older patients and reflexively looks at how a co-creative research process may influence this. It then presents some associated implications for integrated healthcare and the sharing of digital data of the super-aged.