by Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva, on February 2nd, 2010 | 13 Comments »
I’m delighted to present my book: Health and the Network Society published by Ariel now available at the book stores. I perfectly know that it would not become a best-seller but I hope it could contribute just a little to foster new debates and further research on ICT and Health.Health systems are embedded within technological, economic, social and cultural changes of our current social structure: the network society. This book is based on empirical research about the transition of the Catalan health system towards the network society. The results show how the interaction between the technological, economic, organizational, social and cultural dimensions are facilitating the emergence of new profiles of citizens, patients and healthcare professionals. The determinants that shape these new profiles allow us to identify the inhibitors and drivers of Industrial healthcare systems towards the Network healthcare systems.
by Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva, on November 29th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I have collected all the presentations in the same post to summarise the information. Thank you very much indeed to all the participants for these inspiring and wonderful days. I would like also to express my gratitude to Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) for its support.
Workshop: Innovative health technologies: health systems in transition Supported by: Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) Organized by: Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva (Internet Interdisciplinary
Institute –UOC) and Michael Hardey (Hull/York Medical School – Science and
Technology Studies Unit, Department of Sociology, University of York) Data: 26th and 27th November Place: Meeting room -1A , UOC IN3 building. Av. Canal Olímpic, s/n. Edifici B3,
08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona)
Organized by: Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva (Internet Interdisciplinary Institute –UOC) and Michael Hardey (Hull/York Medical School – Science and Technology Studies Unit, Department of Sociology, University of York)
Michael Hardey - Consuming professions: user-review websites and health services
The relationship between doctor and patient was variously regarded as ‘special’, ‘outside’ or otherwise at a distance from other consumer experiences. Since then, the status of doctors has changed and information about health and illness has moved from the confines of the consulting room to the World Wide Web. This presentation considers the recent development of Web 2.0 resources that are constructed around user-generated content about identified health practitioners and services. Web sites where users can both read and write comments about health practitioners and services reflect the broader consumer content industry commonly associated with sites like Amazon and TripAdvisor.
Michael Hardey
Reader in Sociology at the Hull/York Medical School and the Department of Social Sciences, University of Hull. He is also an Associate Director Researcher of the Science and Technology Studies Unit, University of York . His main research interests are in mediated information and relationships. This falls into three broad areas: e-health and in particular the role of the Internet in shaping health beliefs and behaviours; e-body and identity (particularly the representation of the self through new media); and the generation and mediation of information through Web 2.0 resources.
Organized by: Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva (Internet Interdisciplinary Institute –UOC) and Michael Hardey (Hull/York Medical School – Science and Technology Studies Unit, Department of Sociology, University of York)
Eulàlia Hernández’s presentation - Providing resources for caregivers trough the Internet.
Internet is a common tool in our daily living that offers new possibilities for communicating and delivering health care treatments. One of these possibilities is to use Internet to create a community where professionals (such as psychologists) and caregivers can work together in order to generate processes to improve the quality of life, by providing caregivers with resources to cope with difficult situations. From this perspective, in this session, two projects aimed to improve quality of life of caregivers will be discussed.
Eulàlia Hernández
Professor of Psychology at the Open University of Catalonia. She is also the head of PSINET research group at the IN3 Institute. Her research focus is the improvement of quality of life in several health problems trough the use of Information and Communication Technologies.
by Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva, on July 30th, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Nowadays, there are several directories and rankings almost for everything. Information flows, mashups, user-generated contents and collaboration tools, among others, have facilitated the development and the dissemination of these kind of information services.
Nevertheless, I would say (it’s just a hypothesis) that most of these rankings or directories do not mention clearly how they have been developed or in some cases they are build on ‘black box’ criteria. To sum up methodology issues are just missed. Of course, it doesn’t mean that they are not useful but extra caution should be paid when you checked them.
Anyway, I’m glad to share what looks like as a good example of ranking, even it is in a “beta” phase: The Ranking Web of World Hospitals. This ranking clearly specifies:
Background of the project.
Purposes and Goals of Rankings.
Design and Weighting of Indicators.
Collection and Processing of Data
Presentation of Ranking Results
The elements above mention should be mandatory in any ranking, shouldn’t it?
I have to thanks all the people who were there for their questions and comments. Special thanks to Michael Hardey who helps me to improve the statistics labels. Now we have to keep working on some papers using these analysis.
From “Disconnected Citizen to “Networked Citizen”
From “Utilized ICT physicians” to “Integrated ICT Physicians”
Of course, any comment or suggestion will be very welcomed indeed
by Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva, on June 11th, 2009 | No Comments »
I just want to share my presentation “Healthcare system 2.0: from industrial healthcare to network healthcare”. It could be also entitled “From information to interaction, from citizen to networked citizen, from physicians to networked physicianas… Healthcare in transition to Network Society”. I have to congratulate Kroniker, Sanidad 2.0 and Healthcare Department of Euskadi, specially Dr. Rafael Bengoa, for their wonderful job as organizers and support of the conference.
My presentation was based on a research carried out in Catalonia. Our analysis suggests a transition from industrial healthcare system to network healthcare systems with clear gaps and divides:
From plane and low quality health web pages (more than 50% of the 1240 web pages analysed) to interactive health websites (just 5% of them)
From excluded citizens who do not have access to ICT, do not use the Internet and do not care about them, to network citizens, who have access to many ICT devices and use the Internet to read/write, share ideas and socialize.
From traditional physicians (70%) to network physicians (30%), who use Hospital Information System intensively, who use the Internet to spread information, to search national and international research information, to communicate with patients and healthcare professionals to sum up the Internet is embedded on their work routines as interactive space.
As you have already noticed the presentation is in Spanish. I have translated the last two slides. The first one summarizes the drivers of this transition from citizens and healthcare professionals point of view:
SATSU, in the Department of Sociology, “is a specialist unit dedicated to rigorous analysis of the social dynamics informing contemporary and prospective science and technology. It has an established international reputation as a centre of excellence in three areas: the sociology of the biosciences, mobilities, informatics and space, and science and technology governance. the Department of Sociology” directed by Andrew Webster.
As a part of my visiting at SATSU, Darren Reed has invited me to teach a seminar in his course entitled Exemplary Empirical Studies in Social Informatics in the MSc Social Informatics and Management. My intervention was about how the research I have been involved in the past years was developed. So it is not about the research results but about research processes. Here goes the slides:
Finally, I would like to thank all the wonderful people I have met at SATSU for their kindness. It was so easy to settle into the unit. Of course, special thanks indeed to Michael Hardey.
by Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva, on March 22nd, 2009 | No Comments »
Lately I haven’t posted because I have been developing my thesis site to spread the results of the research. The site is in Spanish and the discussion will be in Spanish too. Here goes the video of my presentation (it’s also in Spanish if somebody likes to subtitle it, will be very welcome).
I’m sorry but I do not have enough time to translate the whole document, but I have started to write some papers in English so soon I’ll be sharing some parts of them for a kind of peer review taking into account the restrictions of the Journals.
by Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva, on February 4th, 2009 | 6 Comments »
On 23rd January 2009 I defended my PhD thesis “Internet, health and society. Analysis of the uses of internet related to health in Catalonia” supervised by the IN3’s Director and UOC Research Professor Manuel Castells. I’m translating my slide presentation, it takes time because It has many figures, just take a look at the Spanish version, and my talk to English but I would like to share the Spanish version of my presentation and the main structure in English.
Objectives:
Identify and characterize the presence of the actors of the Catalonian healthcare system in the Internet
Identify, characterize and explain the determinants of the use and social practices that the principal actors of the healthcare system carry out through ICT, specifically that of the Internet
Research questions
What type of quality information and applications related with Health are offered on the Internet?
How can the presence of the healthcare system’s actors on the Internet be characterized?
Which are the main barriers and incentives of patient support groups for Internet use?
What are the ICT uses of the citizens with regard to health and how can they be characterized?
What are the consequences of citizen ICT use, specifically that of the Internet, regarding the management of their health and the relationship with their healthcare professionals?
What are the determinants (technological and non-technological) of the demand of healthcare services by citizens via the Internet?
What are the uses of ICT, especially the Internet, by healthcare professionals and how can they be characterized?
What are the determinants (technological and non-technological) of the uses of the Internet by health care professionals (Physicians, Nurses and Pharmacist)?
General Hypothesis:
The interaction between social structure, the increase of information flow and ICT causes a transformation in social practices and in the behaviour of the actors of the healthcare system
Sub Hyphotesis
The Internet is basically an information space on Health and not an interaction space between the actors of the healthcare system; therefore health webs are characterized by the offer of information resources, by the lack of applications related with communication or services and by levels of quality associated with the actor who provides the resource
The interrelation between access, use and assessment of ICT, healthcare services demand and the capacity of the individuals to take decisions over their own health or those closest to them determines the use of the Internet to access to the health system, a new patient profile called the e-patient
The interrelation between the intensive use of ICT, specially the Internet, the positive assessment by healthcare professionals of these technologies in relation with their work activities and their patients, the intensive use of the information and professional work oriented towards research determines a new professional profile called the Networked healthcare professional.
Methodology
This thesis has verified that:
The Internet constitutes an information space on health and not an interaction space between the various actors in the healthcare system; consequently, health webs are characterized by the offer of resources related with information, the lack of applications related with communication and services, and certain levels of quality associated with the actor that offers the resource.
The interaction between access, use and evaluation of ICT; the demand of healthcare services and the capacity of the individuals to take decisions over their own health and those closest to them, determines the use of the Internet to have access to the healthcare system, i.e. determining a new profile of patient that we have called the e-patient.
The interrelation of the intensive use of ICT, especially that of the Internet; the positive assessment of these technologies in relation with their work and their patients; the intensive use of information, and a professional activity oriented towards research determines a new professional profile which we call the networked healthcare professional (networked physician, networked nurse, networked pharmacist)
Future lines of research
Analysis of the determinants of the processes of innovation of the healthcare systems in relation to ICT
Analysis of the determinants of the state of health in the context of the Network Society
Analysis of public policies in the context of the Network Society
Analysis of the technological dynamics and interactions, economic and social of biomedical research in the context of the Network Society
You can check all the references here or on my personal reference manager. Ismael Peña and Oriol Miralbell have blogging and comment the event. Finally, this thesis is just the beginig of a research career. If you have found any interesting point or something to disscuss or compare, let’s share. As Liverpool supporters You’ll Never Walk Alone.
