Marlot Kuiper

211 Table 4: Artefactual arrangements to model the checklist routine Plainsboro St. Sebastian’s Checklist embedded in software system (digitalized) SURPASS paper checklist (materialized) Posters on the wall of the operating theatres Tabloid-sized whiteboards These descriptive accounts of the artefactual representations provide sufficient starting points for an analysis of how artefacts influence routines. As said, because they are clearly observable and thus distinguishable by the researcher, but also because they reflect ostensive ideas, at least from those actants who have created them. But, as artefacts hardly ever result in performances of actants as intended (Pentland & Feldman, 2008) one should from here observe how artefacts actually ‘model’ the routine. I will do so by looking at their affordances. But, affordances of what exactly? A first important insight that emerges from a description of the rule-embedded artefacts, is that they differ between the hospitals in two important ways. Firstly, the materialization of the checklist differs between the hospitals; where Plainsboro mostly ‘goes digital’, St. Sebastian’s holds on to paper. Secondly - and more importantly; where St. Sebastian holds on to paper and paper only , Plainsboro adopts multiple different representations of the rule. Therefore, I refer to an artefactual arrangement , as a ‘bundling’ of different representations of the checklist rule. These artefacts intend the same behaviour pattern, the same routine, but have different properties. As these artefacts do not stand on their own, but are interrelated in many ways, I will look at their affordances from a relational perspective (e.g. what actions does artefact x afford in relation to artefact y ?) Building on this, I claim that although rule-embedded artefacts are ‘touchable’ or at least ‘visible’ and thus traceable by the researcher, what they are can be only be understood as a continuous, dynamic process, fuelled by their (perceived) possibilities for use. The next sub paragraph therefore analyses the artefactual arrangements in terms of their affordances. 7