Making the Case for Leveraging the Patient-Centered E-Health (PCEH) Context to Expand Information Systems Theory

Patient-centered e-health (PCEH) represents a fascinating area of digitized stakeholder interactions characterized by complex information flows, shared decision making, co-created value, and mutual interest in improving health outcomes. Such a context lies in contrast to often contentious firm-consumer relationships characterized by self-interest, surplus maximization (from both producer and consumer sides), and consumer segmentation. This article suggests that PCEH is an ideal context in which to study the emerging class of information systems that include consumers as empowered influencers, stakeholders, and decision makers, rather than only “purchasers” on the other side of the exchange relationship or “mandated” users in the enterprise context. The PCEH context is proposed as an enormous research opportunity that may significantly contribute to expanding information systems research and theory

'Enough is enough': Austin, knowledge and context

This thesis is concerned with J.L. Austin’s work on the topic of empirical knowledge. Austin encourages us to attend to our everyday epistemic and discursive practices, and specifically to the particular circumstances in which we might ordinarily say that a person knows something. I begin by considering what kind of illumination on the topic of empirical knowledge we might expect to get by following Austin’s approach, and defend Austin’s approach against one influential critique. The focus then shifts to one of Austin’s key observations regarding knowledge, namely that knowing is a matter of having done ‘enough’ for present intents and purposes to establish the truth. I argue that this and other Austinian considerations speak in favour of a contextualist account of knowledge. Finally, I present a novel Austin-inspired response to one particular sceptical puzzle occasioned by what have been referred to as ‘arguments from ignorance’

Why Primary Care Practices Should Become Digital Health Information Hubs for their Patients

Background: Two interesting health care trends are currently occurring: 1) patient-facing technologies, such as personal health records, patient portals, and mobile health apps, are being adopted at rapid rates, and 2) primary care, which includes family practice, is being promoted as essential to reducing health care costs and improving health care outcomes. While these trends are notable and commendable, both remain subject to significant fragmentation and incentive misalignments, which has resulted in significant data coordination and value generation challenges. In particular, patient-facing technologies designed to increase care coordination, often fall prey to the very digital fragmentation issues they are supposed to overcome. Additionally, primary care providers are treating patients that may have considerable health information histories, but generating a single view of such multi-source data is nearly impossible. Discussion: We contribute to this debate by proposing that primary care practices become digital health information hubs for their patients. Such hubs would offer health data coordination in a medically professional setting with the benefits of expert, trustworthy advice coupled with active patient engagement. We acknowledge challenges including: costs, information quality and provenance, willingness-to-share information and records, willingness-to-use (by both providers and patients), primary care scope creep, and determinations of technical and process effectiveness. Even with such potential challenges, we strongly believe that more debate is needed on this topic prior to full implementation of various health information technology incentives and reform programs currently being designed and enacted throughout the world. Ultimately, if we do not provide a meaningful way for the full spectrum of health information to be used by both providers and patients, especially early in the health care continuum, effectively improving health outcomes may remain elusive. Summary: We view the primary care practice as a central component of digital information coordination, especially when considering the current challenges of digital health information fragmentation. Given these fragmentation issues and the emphasis on primary care as central to improving health and lower overall health care costs, we suggest that primary care practices should embrace their evolving role and should seek to become digital health information hubs for their patients

Planning and Sprinting: Use of a Hybrid Project Management Methodology within a CIS Capstone Course

An increasing number of information systems projects in industry are managed using hybrid project management methodologies, but this shift in project management methods is not fully represented in our CIS curriculums. CIS capstone courses often include an applied project that is managed with traditional project management methods (plan first, execute second). While agile methods (adapt to change through iterations) are making inroads, little research has been conducted on using a hybrid of these two project management methods in a capstone course. In this paper, we explain the hybrid project management methods we used in four sections of an undergraduate CIS Capstone course during the Fall and Spring of the 2011-2012 academic year. We also present the results of an end-of-term student satisfaction and critical success factor survey. We find that overall satisfaction with the hybrid approach is high among our sample. We also find that more client involvement and a pragmatic approach to initial project planning are areas for future improvement. The results of our experience and survey provide lessons learned and best practices for those who wish to provide students with applied experience that combines waterfall (traditional) and Scrum (agile) project management techniques in their own courses

Miniaturized atmospheric ionization detector

A small scintillator-based detector for atmospheric ionization measurements has been developed, partly in response to a need for better ionization data in the weather-forming regions of the atmosphere and partly with the intention of producing a commercially available device. The device can measure both the count rate and energy of atmospheric ionizing radiation. Here we report results of a test flight over the UK in December 2017 where the detector was flown with two Geiger counters on a meteorological radiosonde. The count rate profile with height was consistent both with the Geigers and with previous work. The energy of incoming ionizing radiation increased substantially with altitude.Comment: Proc 18th Conference on Atmospheric Electricity, Nara, Japan, June 201

Mobile Health (mHealth) Channel Preference: An Integrated Perspective of Approach-Avoidance Beliefs and Regulatory Focus

It has been suggested that the mobile health (mHealth) channel is effective in assisting with chronic disease management. However, little is known about the mHealth channel preferences of consumers who may be vulnerable to chronic disease. Integrating the lens of approach-avoidance beliefs with regulatory focus theory, we: (1) focus on mHealth channel preference (CHANNEL) as our dependent variable, (2) identify perceived mHealth usefulness (PU) as an approach belief and perceived mHealth risk (RISK) as an avoidance belief, and (3) develop hypotheses pertaining to the how the regulatory focus of the individual (operationalized as perceived vulnerability to chronic disease, i.e., VULN) moderates the impacts of PU and RISK on CHANNEL. Based on analyses using structural equation modeling of survey data collected from 954 individuals in the US, we find that, compared to a promotion regulatory focus (low VULN), a prevention regulatory focus (high VULN) amplifies the effect of RISK on CHANNEL and suppresses the effect of PU on CHANNEL. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory, practice, and future research related to mHealth channel preferences

Hospital Analytics Adoption: Determinants of Choice and Performance Impacts

Technology investment in the healthcare industry has targeted both transaction support systems, such as Electronic MedicalRecords (EMR), and decision support technologies, such as clinical data warehouses and data mining software. While EMRtechnology adoption has received considerable attention in research studies, decision support technology adoptiondeterminants have received less attention. This study aims to investigate the determinants of adoption of decision analyticssystems in hospitals and the resulting impact on hospital performance. Using the Heckman selection model (to correct fordiscrete strategic decision-making endogeneity) on a cross-sectional and representative set of U.S. hospitals integrated fromvarious data sources, we examine the determinants of choice and resulting quality performance impacts of adopting clinicalanalytics systems. We find that EMR systems implementations are good predictors of clinical analytics systems adoption. Wealso find that the performance impacts of process enabled EMR systems are partially influenced by adoption of analyticssoftware

The Authoritarian Playbook: How reporters can contextualize and cover authoritarian threats as distinct from politics-as-usual

Newsrooms are reckoning with how journalists can adequately cover an increasingly anti-democratic political movement in the United States. In covering these events, they face a constant challenge of covering all angles of a story without drawing equivalencies between candidates or politicians who operate within the normal bounds of democratic politics and those who may seek to undermine elections and the rule of law. The media has an essential role to play that is unbiased, but not neutral in applying a consistent standard about threats to democracy.In light of the authoritarian threat, the ongoing process of media evolution and adaptation necessitates that the media may draw on a different toolkit today than it did in the eras of Walter Lippmann's "Public Opinion," the Pentagon Papers, or Watergate.This briefing is designed to help the fourth estate advance this "unbiased but not neutral" role in a healthy democracy by providing two contextualizing resources: a common playbook of tactics used by would-be autocrats in the U.S. and around the globe, and a framework for distinguishing between these authoritarian tactics and normal political jockeyin

Early Adoption of Patient Portals by U.S. Hospitals

Customer-facing information systems have received very little research attention, especially in the context of healthcare. Ashospitals begin to provide healthcare consumers with online patient portals to view and manage personal health records anddiagnostic results, little is known about whether or not the ‘dominant paradigm’ (Fichman 2004) of diffusion of innovationstheory is sufficient for explaining the characteristics of early adopters. We suggest that a more nuanced understanding ofearly adoption of patient portals is needed because early adopters are not only the largest hospitals with substantial resourcesand capabilities residing within competitive environments. Specifically, we suggest that patient-portals are impacted bymarket characteristics and require Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) systems to be adopted first. We develop a non-linear,two-stage, econometric model with sample selection correction that controls for EMR adoption and estimates the impact ofdiffusion of innovation and market characteristics on the early adoption of patient portals by U.S. hospitals

An Analysis of the Evolving Intellectual Structure of Health Information Systems Research in the Information Systems Discipline

The rapid evolution of health information systems (Health IS) research has led to many significantcontributions. However, while the Health IS subset of information systems (IS) scholarship hasconsiderably grown over the past two decades, this growth hasled to questions regarding the currentintellectual structure of this area of inquiry. In an effort to more fully understand how Health ISresearchhas contributed to the IS discipline, and what this may mean for future Health IS researchin the IS domain, we conduct an in-depth evaluation of Health IS research published in mainstreamIS journals. We apply citation analysis, latent semantic analysis (LSA), and social network analysis(SNA) to ourdata setof Health IS articles in order to: (1) identify Health IS research themes andthematic shifts, (2)determine which Health IS research themes are cohesive (versus disparate), (3)identify which Health IS research themes are central (versus peripheral), (4) clarify networks ofresearchers (i.e., thought leaders) contributing to these research themes, and(5) provide insights intothe connection of Health ISresearchto its reference disciplines. Overall, we contribute a systematicdescription and explanation of the intellectual structure ofHealth ISresearchand highlight how theexisting intellectual structure of Health ISresearchprovides opportunities for future research