Normalization Process Model

The Normalization Process Model is a theory that explains how new technologies are embedded in health care work. The model was developed by Carl R May and co-workers, and is an empirically derived grounded theory in medical sociology and Science and Technology Studies (STS), based on qualitative methods. Carl May developed the model after he appeared as a witness at a British House of Commons Health Committee Inquiry on New Medical Technologies in the NHS in 2005. He asked how new technologies became routinely embedded, and taken-for-granted, in everyday work, in view of the increasing corporate organization and regulation of healthcare. The model explains embedding by looking at the work that people do to make it possible.

The model is a theory in sociology that fits well with macro approaches to innovation like the diffusion of innovations theory developed by Everett Rogers. Although the Normalization Process Model is limited in scope to healthcare settings recent work by May and colleagues has led to the development of Normalization Process Theory, which presents a general sociological theory of implementation and integration of technological and organizational innovations.Normalization Process Theory has now superseded the more limited Normalization Process Model.

The Normalization Process Model provides a framework for process evaluation and also for comparative studies of complex interventions, especially of randomized controlled trials. Clinical trials and other evaluations of healthcare interventions often focus on the complex relationships between actors, objects and contexts, making a simple explanatory model, that fits well with other frameworks a necessary tool for clinical and health service researchers. In the Normalization Process Model, A complex intervention is defined as a deliberately initiated attempt to introduce new, or modify existing, patterns of collective action in health care.

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