Use of WhatsApp® aplicattion in health manegement, work, and care in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the use of the WhatsApp® application in health management, work process, and care in coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. A qualitative research was carried out by multiple case studies with semi-structured interviews with SUS managers and workers from May to November 2022. The material was transcribed and processed on ATLAS.ti® and its thematic content was analyzed. The use of WhatsApp® enhanced processes that created new health management, work, and care practices from a lively, communicative perspective produced in actions especially based on the challenges brought to face the pandemic. Results also point to the overcomplication of workers and managers, sometimes configuring situations of exhaustion due to constant and full-time communication in the application and the potential compromise to their health. They also highlight practices that had been informally produced and that emerged as an accelerated process of non-formal institutionalization in response to the practical demands of the health emergency, constituting new communication and access regulation arrangements.