Boosting Efficiency Through the Use Of IT?: Reconfiguring the Management of Mass Casualty Incidents in Germany

Processes of technological innovation are often rationalised with the promise of improved efficiency. Using the example of the development and introduction of an information technology system for managing mass casualty incidents, this article shows that this hope may indeed be substantiated. Yet, an assessment of the societal impacts might show that these improvements often happen in unexpected places or ways. They invariably emerge in relation to organisational structures, cultural influences, and interests. In addition, when focusing only on the advantages of novel technologies, the problems they typically bring with them are ignored. The article challenges three improvements in efficiency usually associated with IT (time savings, improved decision making capacity, and detailed synopsis) with empirical investigations and field observations that were made during the four-year development and introduction phase. In conclusion, evaluations of the technology were neither completely positive nor negative but ambivalent: emphasis on the positive or negative effects depended on the perspectives of the different potential users. Boosting Efficiency Through the Use Of IT? Reconfiguring the Management of Mass Casualty Incidents in Germany