The “Digital Technologies in Healthcare” project investigates how digital health technologies reshape healthcare professionals’ work and influence patient experience. Health software, appointment platforms, teleconsultation services, electronic medical records and AI tools deeply reshape organizational routines, workload, interprofessional coordination and trust relationships. In a highly decentralized French healthcare system, these tools now play a structuring role in the daily work of clinicians, in interprofessional coordination, and in the regulation of care pathways.

In a context marked by staff shortages, shifting disease profiles, regulatory pressure and a strong push for modernization, these innovations raise questions about the place of human interaction in an increasingly digitalized healthcare system. Building on management sciences, organizational routine theory, sociology of technology use, trust studies and digital ethics, the project seeks to understand how these technologies shape practices and how software providers are becoming central actors in the healthcare ecosystem.
Grounded in a mission-driven and sustainability-oriented approach, this GEM research aims to objectively assess the effects of digitalization on healthcare ecosystems and to shed light on how technology providers can act as responsible players—supporting care quality, professionals’ well-being, and growing societal expectations regarding ethics, trust and sustainability.

The project pursues a dual objective:

1. Clarify the mechanisms through which technologies influence care quality, and
2. Offer responsible action frameworks that strengthen sustainability, trust and quality of working life in the healthcare system.

Scientific challenges of digital health

The project lies at the intersection of information systems, health social sciences and digital ethics. It draws on national-scale qualitative and quantitative studies and on analyses of interactions between physicians, patients, institutions and digital health vendors. The research contributes to a renewed understanding of professional routines, trust dynamics toward technologies, and the emerging role of software providers as orchestrators of healthcare ecosystems.

Societal challenges of healthcare digitalization

Healthcare digitalization raises essential issues: administrative overload, impact on vocation, patient consent, data security, equity of access, and the quality of human relationships. In a strained system marked by professional burnout, the project aims to generate knowledge that can support public action and foster responsible, sustainable digital health—respectful of patient dignity and caregiver well-being.

Industrial and institutional challenges of digital health

Software vendors, health platforms, care organizations and regulators face major challenges: technical integration, usability, acceptance, regulatory burden and system fragmentation. The project provides guidelines to design, regulate and deploy digital solutions that are truly useful to professionals, taking into account the complexity of practices, daily constraints and the systemic effects of digital tools on work and care organization.

The “Digital Technologies in Healthcare” project is structured around three research axes, each giving rise to specific studies:

• Transformation of healthcare practices through digital health
• Digital health and care conditions: well-being, workload, and care quality
• Ethical and societal Issues in digital health

Scientific publications and professional reports help document the transformations brought by digital health and its impacts on work, patients and care organization.

Transformation of healthcare practices through digital health

This axis investigates how health technologies reshape professional practices, clinical routines and coordination among actors. It examines inscriptions embedded in software systems, their effects on work organization, and the ways they redefine caregiving activities on a daily basis.

Conference Paper – The Role of E-Health Software in Shaping Liberal Physicians’ Organizational Routines (AIM 2024)

Arsene, O., Vitari, C., Habib, J., & Loup, P. (May 2024). The Role of E-Health Software in Shaping Liberal Physicians’ Organizational Routines. 29th AIM Conference.
This study uses a qualitative approach based on ten interviews with private physicians to explore the impact of e-health software on their professional routines. Grounded in organizational routine theory, it shows how these tools transform both the ostensive and performative dimensions of medical practices, revealing heterogeneous adjustments and shedding light on how digitalization embeds itself into private medical practice. Read the full research article.

Digital health and care conditions: well-being, workload, and care quality

This axis examines how digitalization affects quality of working life, technostress, administrative burden, professional vocation and perceived care quality. It aims to identify the conditions under which technologies genuinely support healthcare work—or contribute to its overload.

White Paper – Independent Healthcare Professionals: Preserving Vocation, Preventing Burnout – (2025) – In French

Excessive hours, chronic fatigue, burnout, administrative overload, aggressions… Independent practitioners are facing significant strain, according to a survey by Doctolib and SPS, conducted with GEM. Yet vocation remains strong for most of them. The white paper presenting the results has just been published.

• Download the white paper in French: Soignants libéraux : préserver la vocation, combattre l’épuisement
• Read the interview with Olivier Arsène, coordinator of the white paper 

Conference Paper – Healthcare Software in French Private Practice: Technostress or Contextual Stress? (ARAMOS 2024) – In French

Arsene, O., & Vitari, C. (Nov. 21, 2024). Healthcare Software in French Private Practice: Technostress or Contextual Stress? 12th ARAMOS Symposium.
This research analyzes the impact of health software on technostress among French private physicians using a mixed-methods approach. Twenty-five interviews identified technological and contextual stressors linked to working conditions. Results highlight the strong moderating effect of the professional context. A conceptual model and hypotheses will be tested quantitatively. Read the full research article in French.

Conference Paper – Leveraging the Job Demands–Resources Model to Explore the Effect of Contextual Stressors on Perceived Usefulness of Health IT (AIM2025)

Arsene, O., & Vitari, C. (May 21–23, 2025). Leveraging the Job Demands–Resources Model to Explore the Effect of Contextual Stressors on Perceived Usefulness of Health IT. 30th AIM Conference, Lyon. This study examines how contextual stressors—administrative burden, patient behavior, regulatory pressure—affect professionals’ perceived usefulness of health technologies. Using the JD-R model, it proposes a theoretical framework explaining how certain conditions turn digital tools into resources or into aggravating factors. A national quantitative study with Doctolib will empirically assess these dynamics. Read the full research article.

Conference Paper – Threshold Dynamics Between Job Demands and Technology’s Perceived Usefulness for Strain Moderation (AMCIS 2025)

Arsene, O., & Vitari, C. (Aug. 2025). Threshold Dynamics Between Job Demands and Technology’s Perceived Usefulness for Strain Moderation. AMCIS 2025, Montréal (Emergent Research Forum).
This research explores the nonlinear relationship between job demands and the perceived usefulness of digital technologies. Drawing on the JD-R model, it identifies an “inverted U-shape” dynamic: technologies support professionals up to a threshold beyond which technostress diminishes their usefulness. A national survey will empirically evaluate this tension between digital resource and digital overload in a high-pressure professional environment. Read the full research article.

Ethical and societal issues in digital health

This axis explores issues of trust, consent, responsibility and equity raised by health technologies. It examines how digitalization reshapes the patient–provider relationship, individual rights and the conditions for an ethical and sustainable healthcare ecosystem.

White Paper – Consent to Care: Are Patients Truly Free? (2024) – in French

Are patients genuinely free in their interactions with physicians? Is the notion of “free and informed consent,” enshrined in French law since 2002, fully implemented in practice? This white paper brings together insights from clinicians, legal scholars, sociologists, anthropologists and digital health experts specializing in e-consent tools. A key finding emerges: a gap persists between legal requirements and actual practices.

• Download the white paper in French: Consentement aux soins: le patient est-il réellement libre ?
• Read the interview with Charles-Clemens Rüling, coordinator.

Conference Paper – The Moderating Effect of Digital Literacy on the Adoption of Connected Health Technologies in Chronic Disease Treatment (AIM 2022) – in French

Arsène, O., & Vitari, C. (June 6, 2022). The Moderating Effect of Digital Literacy on the Adoption of Connected Health Technologies in Chronic Disease Treatment. AIM Symposium.
This study examines the adoption of connected health devices (HIT) by patients with chronic illnesses. It analyzes the role of trust and the moderating effect of digital literacy. Considering patient-physician knowledge asymmetry, the research explores how literacy shapes perception, trust and therapeutic adherence to connected technologies. Read the full research article in French.

Scientific Lead

Olivier Arsène, Lecturer at GEM and member of the Information Systems for Society research team. His work focuses on digital transformation, responsible technology design and the impact of technologies on professional care practices.

The “Digital Technologies in Healthcare” project relies on partnerships or philanthropic contributions supporting specific strands of the research.

Interested in developing a digital health or care transformation project related to your organization or industry? Contact Olivier Arsène, scientific lead of the “Digital Technologies in Healthcare” project.

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