Mobile Healthcare Design Research: A Special Issue for Information Systems Researchers

Special Section Editorial - Mobile Decision Support and Analytics for Healthcare: Citizen, Organization, Governmental and Technological Perspective

A NEW CONCEPTUALISATION OF DESIGN SCIENCE RESEARCH FOR DSS DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH

Despite a well-established research tradition, the field of Decision Support Systems (DSS) suffers from a lack of practitioner relevance. DSS researchers have comprehended the emergence of Design Science Research (DSR) for the issue as it provides support to improve the behavioral aspect of design. However, conceptualizations for DSR as the common approach to conducting DSS research have not been materialized to address the relevance issues. In the paper extending an existing conceptualization, we introduce a new DSR view for DSS development. The view incorporates design dimensions related to DSS design, such as professional value, interaction, intentions, practices, and problem-solving. We developed the DSR view from an action design research approach conducted through a well-defined framework for developing a generic DSS solution. The view represents the importance of practitioner’s centric DSR to better address practitioner’s relevance issues in DSS design

A Post Publication Review of "Emerging Insights of Health Informatics Research: A Literature Analysis for Outlining New Themes"

A short post publication review of a recent AJIS paper

The Role of Image Quality in Telehealth: Adoption Challenges in the Subcontinent

Background: The purpose of this paper is to explore the underlying challenges in the telehealth environment in India and Pakistan that impede the delivery of high-quality images between a patient and health care professional. Method: An exploratory study was conducted among healthcare professionals in India and Pakistan to assess their perceptions regarding image quality, which is used for the diagnosis and treatment decision making. This cross-sectional qualitative study used semi-structured interviews with healthcare professionals in both India and Pakistan. Results: The interviews were analyzed using a thematic analysis, which revealed three major themes. These themes being: ICT infrastructure and connectivity, expertise of persons taking images, and multiple transmission degrading image quality. Conclusions: Findings indicate that in both countries, the main underlying challenge is the lack of consistency in the network infrastructure between urban, rural and remote areas. Additionally, training patients to use hand-held devices to take high-quality images could hold the key to improving the reliability and, consequently, the quality of images transmitted between patients and health care professionals

A Socio-technical Approach to Designing and Evaluating Industry Oriented Applications

Over the past few years many views have emerged that maximize the utilization of design research in Information Systems (IS) application development. A recent insightful debate in the IS community has suggested two major design views in IS research: a) a pragmatic technical artifact orientation, and b) a theory-grounded user and meta-artifact focus. The first (pragmatic design-based) view focuses on explicit knowledge and on a step-by-step methodology for innovative artifact design and building. The second (theory-grounded) view more broadly emphasizes meta-artifact design in IS development and a more prescriptive guidance approach that is grounded in design research. The debate between these two views leads to the question: which method is more suitable for Decision Support System (DSS) design? In extending the debate on design views in IS research, this paper evaluates a DSS application through both the utility of the pragmatic and the socio-technical design research views. This helps create a methodological foundation for industry-oriented DSS design and evaluation. The findings suggest that both positions have merit, but the latter view of design science is more suitable for industry-oriented DSS design

Internet of Things Adoption for Saudi Healthcare Services

Background: Recent studies in information systems have predicted that applications of the Internet of Things (IoT) innovations will revolutionise various sectors including healthcare. Besides the issues and opportunities of IoT based innovations, existing studies have shown limitations to advance the adoption of IoT-understanding and relevant interventions to benefit researchers and healthcare practitioners. Method: In this context, a systematic literature review study was conducted to re-position a qualitative, phenomenological investigation that could offer useful insights into the factors affecting IoT-adoption in a developing country’s healthcare service. In addition to it, five participants who worked in hospitals and clinics in Jazan, Saudi Arabia, took part in the semi-structured interviews developed based on the diffusion of innovation theory. Results: The study explored the relevant literature and evaluated how the outcome is used to identify the key delivers of IoT in healthcare. Conclusions: According to the findings, the capacity of the Saudi healthcare sector to accept and implement a new IT with IoT technologies is increasing and its integrations remains a debated issue

Meta-design Knowledge for Clinical Decision Support Systems

Knowledge gained from a Decision Support Systems (DSS) design should ideally be reusable by DSS designers and researchers. The majority of existing DSS research has mainly focused on empirical problem solving rather than on developing principles that could inform solution approaches for other user contexts. Design Science Research (DSR) has contributed to effective development of various innovative DSS artifacts and associated knowledge development, but there has been limited progress on new knowledge development from a practical problem context, going beyond product and process descriptions. For DSS applications such as Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS) design and development, relevant reusable prescriptive knowledge is of significance not only to understand mutability but also to extend application of theory across domains. In this paper, we develop new design knowledge abstracted from the approach taken in a representative case of innovative CDSS development, specified as an architecture and six design principles. The CDSS design artifact was initially designed for a specific clinical need is shown to be flexible for meeting demands of knowledge production both for diagnosis and treatment. It is argued that the proposed general strategy is applicable to designing CDSS artifacts in similar problem domains representing an important contribution of design knowledge both in DSS and DSR fields

A generic design environment for the rural industry knowledge acquisition

This paper describes a new knowledge acquisition method using a generic design environment where context-sensitive knowledge is used to build specific DSS for rural business. Although standard knowledge acquisition methods have been applied in rural business applications, uptake remains low and familiar weaknesses such as obsolescence and brittleness apply. We describe a decision support system (DSS) building environment where contextual factors relevant to the end users are directly taken into consideration. This “end user enabled design environment” (EUEDE) engages both domain experts in creating an expert knowledge base and business operators/end users (such as farmers) in using this knowledge for building their specific DSS. We document the knowledge organisation for the problem domain, namely a dairy industry application. This development involved a case-study research approach used to explore dairy operational knowledge. In this system end users can tailor their decision-making requirements using their own judgement to build specific DSSs. In a specific end user’s farming context, each specific DSS provides expert suggestions to assist farmers in improving their farming practice. The paper also shows the environment’s generic capability