Electronic cooperation concerning individual plans for health care for alcohol and drug addictions Kjersti Nag og Anne Mette Lorentzen Department of Health Science and Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark Introduction Individual plan is a tool for cooperation in Norwegian social and healthcare services. It addresses patients who are in need for long time, coordinated social and/or health care. It was introduced as a paper based plan, but is now also available as a web based plan. Public guidelines route the individual plan. The main vision is to make the patients use technological services in their treatment. In this project we wish to make clear how technological and organizational experience, affect expectations and resistance towards web based individual plan. Methods Existing theories are the starting point for our research. They proclaim that experiences towards technological and organizational processes affect the way technology is used. This is discussed by Nøhr and Høstgaard in ”En håndbog fra EPJ-observatoriet”. On this basis we wish to study how the patients with alcohol and drug addictions and the healthcare workers find the handling of paper based individual plan as a means of cooperation. We also want to study their evaluation on a web based plan. In addition we study juridical documents about individual plan, public strategies concerning electronic cooperation and the background for developing web based individual plan. This will give us the opportunity to find out what kind of experiences that influence expectations or resistance towards web based individual plan. The method providing empiricism is focus group interviews and examination of documents. However, the project as a whole is illustrated by the actor-network theory (ANT), added by theories of empowerment, communication and motivation. Results The patients as well as the healthcare workers inform that paper based individual plan does not work optimally. However this is reflecting their different needs concerning individual plan. While the patients focus on the follow-up and treatment, the healthcare workers consider individual plan as a tool ensuring cooperation and communication. According to this they have different viewpoints concerning individual plan to become electronic as well. Both groups evaluate that paper based individual plan will continue to exist side by side with the web based individual plan because of its qualities which can’t be copied. Discussion ANT proclaims patients, healthcare workers and technology to be interwoven as actors and actants in a network. On the other side, the actors can be said to be two heterogeneous networks. Their interdependence is shown by ANT in terms of translation, blackbox, cyborgs and generalized symmetry. The interdependency explains the actors’ technological and organizational experience concerning individual plan, and how this affect expectations and resistance towards web based individual plan. This is contrasted by theories of communication, empowerment and motivation which have different explanations for how the actors are compounded and affect each other. The theory of communication claims that cooperation depends on interchange of information and communication, empowerment focuses on freedom – relations of powerlessness inside and between the networks, and theories of motivation discuss how basic human needs affect behaviour and explain human actions. Acknowledgments We acknowledge our supervisor, Karsten U. Niss, for constructive supervision throughout the process. Address for correspondence Lorentzen76@hotmail.com or kjerstinag@hotmail.com.