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SAMKUL-Samfunnsutviklingens kulturell

Strengthening the eHealth expertise and services for citizens - with a focus on eHealth literacy and communication

Awarded: NOK 0.25 mill.

The Women's Network for Research on Technology and Communication in Health is an interdisciplinary network that includes researchers from the humanities, social sciences, informatics, design, medicine and health. Our specific focus lies on the application of technology to improve health and healthcare. This is an area that requires dialogue and cooperation across professional disciplines, jargon and cultures, and requires broad involvement at all levels of knowledge development. The network establishes contact between researchers. This is done through regular meetings and seminars where we discuss research ideas, and collaborate on research projects and publishing. Furthermore, the network constitutes a valuable arena to provide each other with support and feedback with regard to career development and academic exchanges. An objective of the network is thus to contribute to more female professors and project managers of large, externally financed projects. Additionally, the network aims to foster relations with relevant academic communities both nationally and internationally who work at the intersection of health, communication, technology and organization. The network was established in 2009 and is today a consolidated network where we have a positive experience of working together. A challenge in the future is to expand domestic and international cooperation, and to ensure a sustainable foundation for the network through planning activities and dissemination. The network organizes symposia, monthly formal network meetings, and informal network meetings to strengthen the network. We have organized the international workshop Practical Aspects of Health Informatics, PAHI (https://www.ntnu.edu/pahi2017)in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017. The proceedings of the workshop 2015 contains 10 papers and the proceedings from 2017 contains 8 papers. In 2015-2017, when being financed by SAMKUL, the network has thus produced 18 scientific papers, two prefaces and several popular scientific articles and blogs. Spin-off projects are: the international network "The eHealth Research Network", and "the Nordic network on Cancer Patient Pathways". Furthermore, each research group organizes additional meetings, in which focus lies on writing applications to both national and EU-projects. Project manager: Heidi Gilstad Webpage: http://www.ntnu.edu/inb/womens-network-for-research-on-technology-and-communication-in-health

Modern healthcare is both technology-driven and technology-dependent. The transition towards increased use of health information technologies influences the activities of the users, be they healthcare professionals, patients or citizens in need of health information. New practices of interaction, that might fit with altering distributions of information, knowledge, latitude, authority and trust (or lack of them), will be forged by the communicative affordance of the supporting technologies. This indicates the interconnected and multidisciplinary challenges that face a beneficial design and use of eHealth. A variety of researchers from the humanities, social sciences, healthcare professions and technology studies must collaborate to gain holistic insights for this complex issue. As of today such radical interdisciplinary research collaboration needs to be strengthened. In the current proposal we specifically apply for funding for building up an effective infrastructure for networking: by arranging two workshops, and a series of meetings with the final purpose of developing two research proposals in the area of eHealth literacy and communication. One outcome is the gathering of research-based knowledge about citizens-centred eHealth solutions and eHealth literacy and communication in a strong interdisciplinary research group. Such a research group can work strategically and systematically with research applications, and in this process we will involve authorities, interest groups and stakeholders to secure relevance to the target groups.

Funding scheme:

SAMKUL-Samfunnsutviklingens kulturell