Negotiating discourses of healthcare across professional groups: a linguistic and discourse analytical study of a multi-party interaction

The study focuses on a case of intra-professional communication based on a transcript of authentic inter-professional interactions, and investigates the interplay and negotiations among different professional groups engaged in discussion over the adoption of standardized IT-driven clinical record-keeping in the US. The debate brings into play multiple issues that have been central to the provision of medical caref or quite sime time now, where an emphasis on multidisciplinarity in clinical care has mroe recently been compounded with a heightened attention for electronic record-keeping, frequently (but not exclusively ) in the service of financial efficiency. The study contributes to the emerging tradition of applied linguistics based studies on sociotechnical factors in medical discourse. In particular, it focuses in issues of meaning and identity construction in inter-professional negotiations within a changing environment framed by sociotechnical enablers and constraints. The findings provide insights into professional ideolgoies, claims and challenges under pressures from encroaching expert systems.