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Digital Technologies in the Design and Use of Healthcare Services

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A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Digital Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2023) | Viewed by 7915

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Leandro Miletto Tonetto

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Guest Editor

1. SimTigrate Design Lab, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30308, USA
2. National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Brasília 71605-001, Brazil
Interests: design for health and wellbeing; healthcare services; user experience; digital technologies in healthcare

Dr. Guilherme Luz Tortorella

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia
2. IAE Business School, Universidad Austral, C1010 AAZ Buenos Aires, Argentina
3. Departamento de Engenharia de Produção e Sistemas, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianopolis 88040-900, Brazil
Interests: operational excellence in healthcare; digital technologies in healthcare; resilient healthcare; lean management; industry 4.0
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The role of digital technologies (DT) in the design and use of healthcare services has drawn the attention of the research community in several fields, such as IT, design, industrial engineering, and public health, to name a few. DTs positively impact treatment outcomes, administrative activities, supporting processes, and the sustainability of supply chains. Thus, interdisciplinary approaches to designing DTs are crucial to deal with the complexity of healthcare systems as they must prepare to adapt to changes, survive, and thrive even in adverse contexts, e.g., the COVID-19 outbreak. The design and implementation of DTs in healthcare may be affected by a diversity of variables, such as access to technology and financial resources, time, effort to learn how to use them safely and adequately, lack of unified national platforms to integrate data, concerns with privacy violations, and restrictions to integrate different systems. Likewise, the use of DTs by patients may be affected by contextual variables, levels of acceptance and engagement, cultural differences, etc. This Special Issue welcomes submissions from researchers of all fields interested in the role of digital technologies in healthcare services, using qualitative methods, quantitative approaches, or a mix of both. Articles should make theoretical reflections or analyze empirical data. They should address implications to practice, as we aim to inform our readers on developing better healthcare services catalyzed by digital technologies.

Dr. Leandro Miletto Tonetto
Dr. Guilherme Luz Tortorella
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

healthcare 4.0
digital technologies
information and communication technologies
digital health
e-health
healthcare services
service design
patient experience
user experience
resilient healthcare

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 345 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Experiences of a Digital Mental Health Intervention from the Perspectives of Young People Recovering from First-Episode Psychosis: A Focus Group Study

by Shalini Lal, Ryan Tobin, Stephanie Tremblay, John F. M. Gleeson, Simon D’Alfonso, Geraldine Etienne, Ridha Joober, Martin Lepage and Mario Alvarez-Jimenez

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(9), 5745; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20095745 - 08 May 2023

Viewed by 2254

Abstract

Horyzons is a digital health intervention designed to support recovery in young people receiving specialized early intervention services for first-episode psychosis (FEP). Horyzons was developed in Australia and adapted for implementation in Canada based on input from clinicians and patients (Horyzons–Canada Phase 1) and subsequently pilot-tested with 20 young people with FEP (Horyzons–Canada Phase 2). Objective: To understand the experiences of young adults with FEP who participated in the pilot study based on focus group data. Methods: Among the twenty individuals that accessed the intervention, nine participated across four focus groups. Three team members were involved in data management and analysis, informed by a thematic analysis approach. A coding framework was created by adapting the Phase 1 framework to current study objectives, then revised iteratively by applying it to the current data. Once the coding framework was finalized, it was systematically applied to the entire dataset. Results: Four themes were identified: (1) Perceiving Horyzons-Canada as helpful for recovery; (2) Appreciating core intervention components (i.e., peer networking; therapeutic content; moderation) and ease of use; (3) Being unaware of its features; and (4) Expressing concerns, suggestions, and future directions. Conclusions: Horyzons-Canada was well received, with participants wanting it to grow in scale, accessibility, and functionality. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Digital Technologies in the Design and Use of Healthcare Services)

33 pages, 1369 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Getting Connected to M-Health Technologies through a Meta-Analysis

by Luiz Philipi Calegari, Guilherme Luz Tortorella and Diego Castro Fettermann

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(5), 4369; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20054369 - 28 Feb 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1970

Abstract

The demand for mobile e-health technologies (m-health) continues with constant growth, stimulating the technological advancement of such devices. However, the customer needs to perceive the utility of these devices to incorporate them into their daily lives. Hence, this study aims to identify users’ perceptions regarding the acceptance of m-health technologies based on a synthesis of meta-analysis studies on the subject in the literature. Using the relations and constructs proposed in the UTAUT2 (Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2) technology acceptance model, the methodological approach utilized a meta-analysis to raise the effect of the main factors on the Behavioral Intention to Use m-health technologies. Furthermore, the model proposed also estimated the moderation effect of gender, age, and timeline variables on the UTAUT2 relations. In total, the meta-analysis utilized 84 different articles, which presented 376 estimations based on a sample of 31,609 respondents. The results indicate an overall compilation of the relations, as well as the primary factors and moderating variables that determine users’ acceptance of the studied m-health systems. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Digital Technologies in the Design and Use of Healthcare Services)

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Other

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22 pages, 1853 KiB

Open AccessSystematic Review

Professional Competence and Its Effect on the Implementation of Healthcare 4.0 Technologies: Scoping Review and Future Research Directions

by Abey Jose, Guilherme L. Tortorella, Roberto Vassolo, Maneesh Kumar and Alejandro F. Mac Cawley

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(1), 478; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20010478 - 28 Dec 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2904

Abstract

Background: The implementation of Healthcare 4.0 technologies faces a number of barriers that have been increasingly discussed in the literature. One of the barriers presented is the lack of professionals trained in the required competencies. Such competencies can be technical, methodological, social, and personal, contributing to healthcare professionals managing and adapting to technological changes. This study aims to analyse the previous research related to the competence requirements when adopting Healthcare 4.0 technologies. Methods: To achieve our goal, we followed the standard procedure for scoping reviews. We performed a search in the most important databases and retrieved 4976 (2011–present) publications from all the databases. After removing duplicates and performing further screening processes, we ended up with 121 articles, from which 51 were selected following an in-depth analysis to compose the final publication portfolio. Results: Our results show that the competence requirements for adopting Healthcare 4.0 are widely discussed in non-clinical implementations of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) applications. Based on the citation frequency and overall relevance score, the competence requirement for adopting applications of the Internet of Things (IoT) along with technical competence is a prominent contributor to the literature. Conclusions: Healthcare organisations are in a technological transition stage and widely incorporate various technologies. Organisations seem to prioritise technologies for ‘sensing’ and ‘communication’ applications. The requirements for competence to handle the technologies used for ‘processing’ and ‘actuation’ are not prevalent in the literature portfolio. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Digital Technologies in the Design and Use of Healthcare Services)

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