Information overload

: sources, consequences and solutions within the Portuguese Health Care Industry

Abstract

Workers are now becoming aware of the problems associated with information overload. These days information is almost infinite and can be accessed with a few mouse clicks or delivered automatically to people’s electronic devices. Current research stresses that high volume of information can have a negative impact on people’s work, affecting not only their decision making process but also their creativity and well-being. According to a study, it would take, on average, 25 minutes for a person to return to a work task after an email interruption. Even though workers are aware of the issues related with information overload, companies seem apathetic when it comes to addressing this problem. This thesis aims to understand how companies and workers operating within the Portuguese health care industry are being affected by information overload. In order to do so, the results from meetings and nominal group techniques developed by AdvanceCare are compared to the results of a study performed at another health care company (Company B). The comparison between these two companies shows similarities such as: email being pointed as the main source of information overload, workers being affected frequently and as a result losing a great part of their time dealing with this excess of information.

Date of Award	16 Jul 2014
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Rute Xavier (Supervisor)