Keywords

corpus linguistics, critical theory, discourse analysis, health information technology, national health information infrastructure, social constructionism, social inequality, social justice, value sensitive design

 

Authors

  1. Trigg, Lisa J. PhD, ARNP

Abstract

This research analyzes how discourse constituting the currently proposed National Health Information Infrastructure (NHII) may reproduce existing social inequality in healthcare. Textually oriented critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics methods compare 3 executive summaries from the Institute of Medicine reports: the Quality Chasm and Insuring Health series, and the stand-alone report Unequal Treatment. These methods proved effective in studying the social action of language used in those summaries and will be useful in studying a larger corpus of discourse constituting the NHII. Further research will provide information to prevent or mitigate the reproduction of social inequality in healthcare through the proposed NHII.