WI2023 – Track: Digital Health & Well-Being
Track description
The digital transformation of health care has been a going concern for researchers in the field of information systems (IS) (Agarwal et al. 2010; Baird et al. 2018; Burton-Jones et al. 2019). However, over time, the themes associated with this overarching research interest have begun to change as have the technologies and tools that are available to practitioners and policy makers in the health care space.
A classical topic in the digital transformation of health care concerns the implementation of information systems in hospitals (Baird et al. 2018) and the role that electronic medical records play therein (Agarwal et al. 2010; Hansen and Baroody 2020; Oborn et al. 2011). Dynamics that have unfolded throughout more recent years have also brought to the fore meaningful technological developments that add to these classical topics and further diversify the digital health research space. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of digital tools such as contact tracing apps for disaster control (Pandl et al. 2021; Trang et al. 2020). Likewise, platforms have emerged that enable patients to exchange ideas, self-help and find advice (Barrett et al. 2016; Fürstenau et al. 2021). Building on these developments, an increasingly important discussion puts patients at the center by exploring their roles and responsibilities in digitally enabled self-management (Dadgar and Joshi 2018; Wessel et al. 2019) as well as calling on providers to design, engineer, and manage the delivery of health care services in a patient-centered manner thereby creating novel types of value (Agarwal et al. 2020; Porter 2010; Porter and Teisberg 2006). At the center of all these developments lies a renewed interest of researchers in the role that data play for innovation in services, digital tools, and applications (Jarvenpaa and Markus 2018; Rothe et al. 2019; Thiebes et al. 2020; Vassilakopoulou et al. 2018) that also concerns society at large as digital technologies become widely accepted diagnostic and even therapeutic tools.
In short, when we as researchers say ‘digital transformation of health care’ we are in fact looking back at a rich and diverse body of literature. Some of the literature may echo classical themes that matter up until today while other parts of the literature reflect more recent societal and academic interests. This is why time has come to take stock and ask where our cumulated efforts to build knowledge around digital health have taken us and what the future may bring.
This track casts the net wide and welcomes submissions that speak to the abovementioned issues and new topics entering the fray. We welcome all submissions with the potential to contribute to our understanding of both classical health care IT topics as well as more recent topics relating to the relationship between digital data objects, digital tools and their potentially transformational impacts. Papers may be focused on original theory-oriented research, design-oriented research, empirical studies, or conceptual work. We are agnostic in terms of methodologies applied.
Track topics
Submissions may address the following topics, but are not limited to them:
- The changing role and management of digital health data for digital innovation
- New impact of digital health tools and digital data objects in- and outside of healthcare, e.g., in times of crisis
- A process perspective explaining dynamics of digital transformation in healthcare
- Change of professional roles, identities, and institutions for value creation in health
- New design of digital innovations for improving patients’ self-management of chronic conditions
- The role of data and tools as inhibitors or promotors for a disease-based health care system
- The potential for precision medicine in transforming the health system
- The potential for sharing algorithms across jurisdictions to enable international progress in clinical research and quality improvement
- The role of data and tools like sensors, wearables technologies, and digital health apps as inhibitors or promotors for a patient-centric health care
- The role of digital tools like virtual coaching for autonomy of health care providers and patients
- The relationship between classical hospital information systems and more recent digital innovations in health care
- Changing business models towards preventative care and patient or citizen-centered models
- Changes in support for people in need for care, including elderly or handicapped, through digital technologies
- The role of new digital technologies like XR, web3.0 and machine learning for creating health data and for creating value from health data
- New modes of capturing value from digital health data, e.g., reimbursement strategies
- New ethical challenges from health data, considering privacy and security
- Digital tools and use of digital health data to connect different participants of health service networks, to support decision making and to improve logistical and organisational processes
Track Chairs
Lauri Wessel
European New School of Digital Studies @ European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)
Lauri Wessel holds the chair for Information Management and Digital Transformation at the European New School of Digital Studies at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) since October 2020. He serves jointly at the European New School of Digital Studies (ENS) as well as at the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics. Lauri is also an adjunct professor for Health Care Management at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the Nowegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Prior to these appointments, Lauri was a professor for Management and Organization at the University of Bremen as well as junior professor for Information Systems and Organization at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. Lauri’s work is focused on using organization theory in order to understand and design the digital transformation of organizations and organizational fields, particularly in the area of digital health. Accordingly, his work is focused on building theory through inductive case studies as well as designing digital innovations in health care. He has published in core information systems journals such as Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Information Systems Journal, Business and Information Systems Engineering as well as organization theory journals like Research in the Sociology of Organizations and medicine journals like Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions or Psycho-Oncology. Lauri serves as associate editor for Communications of the Association for Information Systems and sits on the editorial board of Information and Organization.
Hannes Rothe
ICN Business School (Paris, Nancy, Berlin) & Digital Entrepreneurship Hub
Hannes Rothe is an Associate Professor (tenure) for Information Systems and Digital Transformation at ICN Business School (Paris, Nancy, Berlin) since 2021. He co-founded the Digital Entrepreneurship Hub at Freie Universität Berlin, where he remains responsible for pre-incubation and incubation of AI ventures. Between 2013 and 2021, Hannes coordinated entrepreneurship education at Freie. He has been a visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge (UK) and TU Graz (Austria). His research interests lie on organizing data and knowledge, managing digital ecosystems and infrastructures, and digital entrepreneurship. His work has been published in information systems and strategy journals such as the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Strategic Management Journal, Information Systems Journal, Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Business & Information Systems Engineering, and was presented at leading information systems conferences. He was runner-up and winner of multiple awards, including the Claudio Ciborra Award for the most innovative paper in 2019. Since 2017, Hannes is an enthusiastic supporter of entrepreneurship and innovation for postdocs across disciplines, for instance as a member of the Postdocs-to-Innovators Network (with University of Cambridge, Freie Universität Berlin, University of Edinburgh, Universität Innsbruck, Paris PSL).
Melanie Reuter-Opperman
Technical University Darmstadt
Melanie Reuter-Oppermann is a postdoctoral researcher in the Information Systems group at the Technical University of Darmstadt. In 2017, she received her PhD in Operations Research from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) on the analysis and optimisation of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) systems. At KIT, she established the HealthCareLab at the Karlsruhe Service Research Institute. She is a joint coordinator of the European Working Group on Operational Research Applied to Health Services (ORAHS). In her research, she applies Information Systems and Operations Research methods to support decision making in healthcare. Besides EMS, her recent research interest is in primary care services, hospital and blood logistics as well as crisis management. She recently received the Julius von Haast Fellowship from the Royal Society of New Zealand.
Andrew Burton-Jones
The University of Queensland
Andrew Burton-Jones graduated from UQ’s Commerce program in 1998 and worked for several years in IT risk management for one of the Big-4 accounting/consulting firms. He then moved to Georgia State University in Atlanta, USA, to complete his Ph.D., followed by seven years at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where he became a tenured Associate Professor. He returned to UQ in May 2012.
Andrew has taught information systems in undergraduate, graduate, and executive programs, in several counties. He has a particular interest in IT governance and control, IT development, and IT strategy. He undertakes research in three areas. His first area focuses on how effectively organisations use IT. For example, he has been studying the effective use of electronic health records in health authorities. His second research area focused on improving methods to analyse and design IT systems. For example, he has examined ways to improve the specification of user requirements. His third research stream focuses on improving theories and methods used by researchers in the Information Systems discipline.
He has published in and served on the editorial boards of the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, and other outlets. He recently completed a term as Representative for the Americas for the Association of Information Systems and commenced a term as International Representative for the Academy of Management (OCIS Division).
Associate Editors
- Paul Drews, Leuphana University Lüneburg
- Daniel Fürstenau, Copenhagen Business School
- Martin Gersch, Freie Universität Berlin
- Tobias Kowatsch, Universität St. Gallen
- Roxana Ologeanu-Taddei, University of Montpellier
- Hannes Schlieter, Technical University Dresden
- Franziska Bathelt, Technical University Dresden
- Stefanie Steinhäuser, University of Regensburg
- Polyxeni Vassilakopoulou, University of Agder
- Anne-Katrin Witte, FernUni Hagen & Technical University of Berlin
- Manuel Trenz, University of Göttingen
- Torsten Eymann, University of Bayreuth
- Heiko Gewald, HS Neu-Ulm
References
Agarwal, R., Dugas, M., Gao, G. (Gordon), and Kannan, P. K. 2020. “Emerging Technologies and Analytics for a New Era of Value-Centered Marketing in Healthcare,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (48:1). (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00692-4).
Agarwal, R., Gao, G., DesRoches, C., and Jha, A. K. 2010. “Research Commentary—The Digital Transformation of Healthcare: Current Status and the Road Ahead,” Information Systems Research (21:4), INFORMS, pp. 796–809. (https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.1100.0327).
Baird, A., Angst, C. M., and Oborn, E. 2018. “Research Curation: Health Information Technology,” MIS Ouarterly.
Barrett, M., Oborn, E., and Orlikowski, W. 2016. “Creating Value in Online Communities: The Sociomaterial Configuring of Strategy, Platform, and Stakeholder Engagement,” Information Systems Research (27:4), pp. 704–723. (https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2016.0648).
Burton-Jones, A., Akhlaghpour, S., Ayre, S., Barde, P., Andrew, S., and Sullivan, C. 2019. “Changing the Conversation on Evaluating Digital Transformation in Healthcare: Insights from an Institutional Analysis,” Information and Organization.
Dadgar, M., and Joshi, K. D. 2018. “The Role of Information and Communication Technology in Self-Management of Chronic Diseases: An Empirical Investigation through Value Sensitive Design,” Journal of the Association for Information Systems (19:2), Association for Information Systems, pp. 86–112. (https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00485).
Fürstenau, D., Klein, S., Vogel, A., and Auschra, C. 2021. “Multi-Sided Platform and Data-Driven Care Research: A Longitudinal Case Study on Business Model Innovation for Improving Care in Complex Neurological Diseases,” Electronic Markets. (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-021-00461-8).
Hansen, S., and Baroody, J. A. 2020. “Electronic Health Records and the Logics of Care: Complementarity and Conflict in the U.S. Healthcare System,” Information Systems Research (31:1), pp. 57–75. (https://doi.org/10.1287/ISRE.2019.0875).
Jarvenpaa, S. L., and Markus, M. L. 2018. “Data Perspective in Digital Platforms: Three Tales of Genetic Platforms,” Proceedings of the 51st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, pp. 4574–4583.
Majchrzak, A., Markus, M. L., and Wareham, J. 2016. “Designing for Digital Transformation: Lessons for Information Systems Research from the Study of ICT and Societal Challenges,” MIS Quarterly (40:2), pp. 267–277. (https://doi.org/Article).
Oborn, E., Barrett, M., and Davidson, E. 2011. “Unity in Diversity: Electronic Patient Record Use in Multidisciplinary Practice,” Information Systems Research (22:3), pp. 547–564. (https://doi.org/doi:10.1287/isre.1110.0372).
Pandl, K. D., Thiebes, S., Schmidt-Kraepelin, M., and Sunyaev, A. 2021. “How Detection Ranges and Usage Stops Impact Digital Contact Tracing Effectiveness for COVID-19,” Scientific Reports, pp. 11, 9414. (https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.08.20246140).
Porter, M. 2010. “What Is Value in Health Care? – Supplementary Appendix 2,” New England Journal of Medicine. (https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp1011024.This).
Porter, M. E., and Teisberg, E. 2006. Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-Based Competition on Results, Boston: Harvard BUsiness Review Press.
Rothe, H., Jarvenpaa, S. L., and Penninger, A. A. 2019. “How Do Entrepreneurial Firms Appropriate Value in Bio Data Infrastructures: An Exploratory Qualitative Study,” in Proceedings of the 27th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), Stockholm & Uppsala, Sweden.
Thiebes, S., Toussaint, P. A., Ju, J., Ahn, J. H., Lyytinen, K., and Sunyaev, A. 2020. “Valuable Genomes: Taxonomy and Archetypes of Business Models in Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing,” Journal of Medical Internet Research (22:1). (https://doi.org/10.2196/14890).
Trang, S., Trenz, M., Weiger, W. H., Tarafdar, M., and Cheung, C. M. K. 2020. “One App to Trace Them All? Examining App Specifications for Mass Acceptance of Contact-Tracing Apps,” European Journal of Information Systems (29:4). (https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2020.1784046).
Vassilakopoulou, P., Skorve, E., and Aanestad, M. 2018. “Enabling Openness of Valuable Information Resources: Curbing Data Subtractability and Exclusion,” Information Systems Journal, Wiley Online Library.
Wessel, L., Davidson, E. J., Barquet, A. P., Rothe, H., Peters, O., and Megges, H. 2019. “Configuration in Smart Service Systems: A Practice-Based Inquiry,” Information Systems Journal (29:6), pp. 1256–1281. (https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.12268).