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)

26th November

• Andrew Webster - Innovation in health: a social science perspective
• Michael Morrison - ‘Measuring Innovation - a brief introduction to
  the REMEDiE project’
• Laura Machin - Cord blood banking: initial observations
• Mariann Hardey - Private medical care and the Web
• Eulàlia Hernádez - Providing resources for caregivers trough the
  Internet.
• Flis Henwood - ‘Health-e discourse? Engaging the community in ehealth
  developments for obesity self-management’
• Sue Ziebland - Knowledge is Power? The role of health information

27th November

• Imma Grau - Studying Virtual Communities for patients with chronic
  illnesses, in Forumclinic
• Daniel López - Reframing telecare: an ethical discussion concerning
  ageing-in-place, independence and care.
• Darren Reed - Performativity of Data
• Michael Hardey - Consuming professions: user-review websites and health services.
• Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva and Michael Hardey - Health professionals, the Internet and Internet informed patients.

“Innovative health technologies: health systems in transition Workshop”

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: 27th November

Place: UOC IN3 building. Av. Canal Olímpic, s/n. Edifici B3, 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona)

Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva and Michael Hardey - Health professionals, the Internet and Internet informed patients

The practice of medicine and health care has been increasingly influence by and made use of the Internet as a source of information, communication and social interaction. This paper examines how doctors, nurses and community pharmacists use the Internet and how this shapes their interaction with patients. It is based on data from surveys of doctors, nurses and pharmacists working within the Catalan National Health Care System (CNHS) that were carried out during 2006. The consequent data provides an extensive and detailed quantitative database that is amenable to multivariate statistical analysis. This analysis is described and from it the manner in which the different health professions engage with Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the Internet is identified.  It is suggested that the Internet should now be understood as part of mundane work and that professionals have recognised that it can be an important source of information and support for patients. There appears to be a cumulative effect whereby the more engaged with ICTs practitioners become the more likely they recognise and respond to patients who want to discuss and use resources and information from the Internet.

“Innovative health technologies: health systems in transition Workshop”

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: 27th November

Place: UOC IN3 building. Av. Canal Olímpic, s/n. Edifici B3, 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona)

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.

I’m deligthed to announce the “Innovative health technologies: health systems in transition Workshop”

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: UOC IN3 building. Av. Canal Olímpic, s/n. Edifici B3, 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona)

Description

Digital technologies and the Internet are increasingly changing how people understand their health, how health care is organised and delivered to patients and opening up new scientific approaches and innovations. For example, health care records are being digitised and made available though various devices to users in most nations with a centralised health care system. Developments in genetics, imaging technologies, cloning and stem cell research are changing how health is understood and the treatments available to individuals. Such changes in the organisation of health and medical knowledge are increasingly engaging with the public through information that is made available on the Internet.

The Internet is now a vast repository of information about health and well-being.  Supported by Web 2.0 resources, the Internet has increasingly included information about health, illness and lifestyles provided by individuals.  As more of the public become connected through computers and mobile devices new opportunities are created for the publication of health information and advice.  However, the diversity of health information raises questions about quality and the impact incorrect or poor information may have on individuals.  There is already evidence that the doctor-patient relationship is changing in the face of developments in Information and Communications Technologies.  In addition, while people are the advice people may choose to follow may not necessarily result in health behaviours.  For example, men defined as obese may share information available on the Internet to remain ‘big and fat’ despite medical advice to the contrary.

The desire to provide a seamless inter-agency service built around the needs of individual people (and more broadly clients and patients of national health and welfare services) is a common aspiration in most countries with a centralised welfare system.  Developments in Telecare have seen the growth of ‘smart homes’ that enable people to live safely at home through various monitoring and intervention systems.  Such monitoring devices are also being used by people in pursuit of healthy bodies through exercise.  The iPod or iPhone can, for example, be used to monitor running and other physical activity. These technologies raise questions to do with the privacy and ownership of information.  In other words information technology has become both directly and indirectly part of everyday life for many people and those who play a part in their lives.

In this broad context, the aim of this workshop is seeking to understand how, for whom and to what extend changes in the material conditions of health information and communication is transforming the generation of medical knowledge, the conception of health and the demand and provision of healthcare delivery.

To reach this aim, the workshop is organized in discussion sessions where social researchers will present their recent research results, methodologies and experiences with enough time for rich interaction among the participants.

Program

26th Thursday

10:00 – 10:15 Opening session
10:15 – 12:00 Presentations

• Andrew Webster - Innovation in health: a social science perspective
• Michael Morrison - ‘Measuring Innovation - a brief introduction to the REMEDiE project’
• Laura Machin - Cord blood banking: initial observations

12:00 – 12:15 Coffer-break
12:15 – 13:45 Presentations

• Mariann Hardey - Private medical care and the Web
• Eulàlia Hernádez - Providing resources for caregivers trough the Internet.

13:45 – 15:00 Lunch
15:00 – 16:45 Presentation

• Flis Henwood - ‘Health-e discourse? Engaging the community in e-health developments for obesity self-management’
• Sue Ziebland - Knowledge is Power? The role of health information

16:45 – 17:00 Coffer-break
17:00 – 17:30 Conclusions of the day

27th Friday

10:00 – 10:15 Opening session
10:15 – 12:00 Presentations

• Imma Grau - Studying Virtual Communities for patients with chronic illnesses, in Forumclinic
• Daniel López - Reframing telecare: an ethical discussion concerning ageing-in-place, independence and care.
• Darren Reed - Performativity of Data

12:00 – 12:15 Coffer-break
12:15 – 13:45 Presentation

• Michael Hardey - Consuming professions: user-review websites and health services
• Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva and Michael Hardey - Health professionals, the Internet and Internet informed patients

13:30 – 15:00 Lunch
15:00 – 16:00 Conclusions of the workshop

Thanks indeed to the participants, to IN3 for the support and to Laura Vidal for her wonderful organization work. See also information available at IN3.

I would like to disseminate a paper entitled Knowledge, networks and economic activity: an analysis of the effects of the network on the knowledge-based economy written by Joan Torrent, director of ICTs Interdisciplinary Research Group (i2TIC), brand new research group I belong to.

This paper contextualises the disruptive change of the transition to a knowledge-based economy and discusses the social sciences postulations with regards to this phenomenon. Once the general context is explained, the article focuses on the microeconomic foundations, understanding knowledge as an input and as a commodity. Finally, after discussing the microeconomics of knowledge, the paper tackles network externalities and their  impact on economic functions and market structure.

Abstract

The progressive consolidation of a knowledge-based economy has caused network effects to become a focal point of analysis into the changes in behaviour evinced by economic agents. This article analyses the changes in production and demand for knowledge commodities arising from network externalities. The analysis reveals two distinct patterns of behaviour in knowledge-based economic activity. Observable knowledge commodities are governed by the effect of direct and indirect network externalities. Also, their demand curve and business strategy depend on new-user entry (marginal value) and the relative size of the network. However, tacit knowledge commodities are governed by learning network externalities and their demand curve and business strategies are dependent on the value generated by the addition of the goods themselves to the network (intrinsic value).

This paper could help towards a better understanding of  health care systems within the network society.

I have finished to check the proof of my article entitled Opportunities and challenges of Web 2.0 within the health care systems: an empirical exploration for Informatics for Health and Social Care (An International Journal of Informatics in Health Care).

Here goes the abstract:

The Internet has become one of the main drivers of e-health. Whilst its impact and potential is being analysed, the Web 2.0 phenomenon has reached the health field and has emerged as a buzzword that people use to describe a wide range of online activities and applications. The aims of this article are: to explore the opportunities and challenges of the Web 2.0 within the health care system and to identify the gap between the potential of these online activities and applications and the empirical data. The analysis is based on: online surveys to physicians, nurses, pharmacist and patient support groups; static web shot analysis of 1240 web pages and exploration of the most popular Web 2.0 initiatives. The empirical results contrast with the Web 2.0 trends identified. Whereas the main characteristic of the Web 2.0 is the opportunity for social interaction, the health care system at large could currently be characterised by: a lack of interactive communication technologies available on the Internet; a lack of professional production of health care information on the Internet, and a lack of interaction between these professionals and patients on the Internet. These results reveal a scenario away from 2.0 trends.

The article has been done with Miquel Angel Mayer and Joan Torrent, colleagues from Interdisciplinary Research Group on ICTs (i2TIC), and will be published on September 2009.

On 23rd June I had the pleasure to present some of the results of our research in the Brown Bag Seminar Series at Science and Technology Studies Unit (SATSU) in the Department of Sociology at University of York where I’m as a visiting researcher.

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

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:

The second one is  a framework for policy-makers to manage this change developed by Ismal Peña, another member of Interdisciplinary Research Group on ICTs (i2TIC), based on Measuring digital development for policy-making: Models, stages, characteristics and causes. The role of the government

We have to keep working into this framework to adapt it better to healthcare system. Although I think It perfectly fixes within the healthcare system.

From May to September,  I’m a visiting researcher at Science and Technology Studies Unit (SATSU).

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.