Systems Thinking for Digital Health and Healthcare Processes

Dear Colleagues,

The evolution of digital technology has resulted in opportunities to support public health. Digital technologies are being integrated into the living- and society-related aspects of various fields to enhance population health, efficiency, precision, and personalization in healthcare delivery (Hu et al., 2017). Digital information and communication technologies are becoming increasingly prevalent in healthcare and are changing the nature of the work of health care professionals (Konttila et al., 2019). Healthcare information systems (HISs) are an integral element of care processes and documentation processes (Chaudhry et al., 2006), as well as knowledge management (KM) and learning processes (Svensson et al., 2023). However, the development and implementation of information systems (ISs) are challenging (e.g., Aanestad et al., 2019; Alter, 2008; Heeks, 2006; Saxena et al., 2020), due to the inherent complexity of interactions between technological, social, and organizational factors (Alter, 2008; DeSanctis & Poole, 1994), where critical success factors have proven to be important (Aggestam et al., 2023).

The engagement of ordinary citizens and their participation in their own health and care can be enabled, and digital health services can be used to support patients’ self-management. Health tools can contribute to equal, efficient, accessible, and safe care, and can provide individuals with independence. However, there are also concerns about how promising technological advances can lead to unintended consequences such as perpetuating health and health-care disparities for under-resourced populations (Brewer et al., 2020).

This Special Issue seeks contributions that use systems thinking and a holistic approach as methodological foundations to improve digital health as well as healthcare processes, where digital technologies and ISs play an important role in creating value for employees, patients, organizations, and/or the population as a whole. Since health is a knowledge-intensive operation, we also encourage contributions on how to use KM and learning in this context.

References

Aggestam, L., van Laere, J., & Svensson, A. (2023) How to Apply and Manage Critical Success Factors in Healthcare Information Systems Development?, Systems, 11, 469.;

Alter, S. (2008). Defining Information Systems as Work Systems: Implications for the IS Field, European Journal of Information Systems, 17, 448–469.

Aanestad, M., Vassilakopoulou, P., & Øvrelid, E. (2019). Collaborative innovation in healthcare: Boundary resources for peripheral actors, In Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems, Munich, Germany, 15–18 December, p. 24.

Brewer, L. C., Fortuna, K. L., Jones, C., Walker, R., Hayes, S. N., Patten, C. A., & Cooper, L. A. (2020). Back to the future: achieving health equity through health informatics and digital health, JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 8(1), e14512.

Chaudhry, B., Wang, J., Wu, S., Maglione, M., Mojica, W., Roth, E., & Shekelle, P.G. (2006). Systematic review: Impact of health information technology on quality. efficiency, and costs of medical care, Annual Internal Medicine, 144, 742–752.

DeSanctis, G., & Poole, M.S. (1994). Capturing the complexity in advanced technology use: Adaptive structuration theory, Organization Science, 5, 121–147.

Hu, H., Galea, S., Rosella, L., & Henry, D. (2017). Big data and population health: focusing on the health impacts of the social, physical, and economic environment, Epidemiology, Nov;28(6):759-762.

Konttila, J., Siira, H., Kyngäs, H., Lahtinen, M., Elo, S., Kääriäinen, M., ... & Mikkonen, K. (2019). Healthcare professionals’ competence in digitalisation: A systematic review, Journal of clinical nursing, 28(5-6), 745-761.

Saxena, D., & McDonagh, J. (2020). The Evolving Nature of Information Systems Controls in Healthcare Organisations, Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 24.

Svensson, A., Gustavsson, L., Svenningsson, I., Karlsson, C., & Karlsson, T. (2023). Healthcare professionals learning when implementing a digital artefact identifying patients’ cognitive impairment, Journal of Workplace Learning, 35(6), 490–505.

Dr. Ann Svensson
Dr. Lena Aggestam
Dr. Joeri van Laere
Guest Editors

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• systems thinking
• digital health
• digital healthcare processes
• healthcare information systems
• knowledge management