Organisation in crisis: Exploring the intensification of digital communication tools by hospital staff in a Belgian general hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic

The complex and unprecedented circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic restructured communication practices in hospitals, since the customary communication practices and channels were either inadequate or not possible to utilise. This is noticeable in the intensification of digital communication tools. The aim of this paper is to assess how communication tools and practices evolved in a Belgian general hospital during a crisis, and specifically how digital communication tools shaped the organising processes. Both quantitative and qualitative data was collected through a questionnaire (N=901), diffused to the entirety of hospital staff, and six focus groups (N=53). The findings illustrate how communicational practices happened in the pre-COVID-19 hospital context, in the COVID-19 pandemic context, and in the post COVID-19 context. This study puts forth that in times of crisis the habitual organising in the general hospital is bracketed and a new form emerges, namely that of an ‘organisation in crisis’. In the general hospital, this form was constituted through the pre-existing communicational context and by a sense-making process done by managers and it was brought to life with and by digital communication tools. Nevertheless, this form is not sustained over time as it with the diminishing of the crisis so does the use of digital communication tools for organising.