Information Infrastructures Within European Health Care: Working With the Installed Base (Health Informatics)

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license.

The book aims to be a resource for those interested in planning and implementing large-scale information infrastructures for novel electronic services in health care. The focus of this book is on the pivotal role of the installed base (i.e. the already existing elements of an infrastructure) for ensuing infrastructural development.

The book presents rich empirical cases on the design, development and implementation of core infrastructural components (e-prescription and public patient-oriented web platforms) in different national settings across Europe. Therefore, this is a book in which theoretical insights and practical experiences are tightly connected.

Contributions have been sourced from a network of academics that have been working on the topic for years, and who have previously collaborated and shared a common understanding of the challenges entailed in expanding information infrastructures within healthcare. The book aims to become a reference for those seeking theoretical and empirical insights for conceptualizing and steering the evolution of information infrastructures in healthcare.

The two types of systems (e-prescription and public patient-oriented web platforms) have been selected because they are widespread across Europe, because they invite comparisons, and because they are exemplary of two different types of aims. E-prescription initiatives are usually seen as opportunities to improve healthcare delivery by systematic and not dramatic change. Public patient-oriented web platforms are seen as opportunities to pursue wider and more radical innovation.

This book targets researchers, practitioners and students who would benefit from a book providing a comprehensive view to contemporary approaches for the design and deployment of large-scale, inter-organizational systems within healthcare.

Margunn Aanestad is Professor at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo.

She studied medical electronics engineering (B. Eng and M. Eng) at the University of Stavanger and received her Ph.D. on informatics from the University of Oslo. She has researched the introduction of information and communication technologies in healthcare organizations and their impact on information processes and service provision. Her research has a special focus on inter-organizational, networked collaboration, and belongs theoretically in the Information Systems field. She has published, among others, in Information Systems Research, Strategic Journal of Information Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, Journal of Information Technology, Information Systems Journal, Journal of the AIS and MIS Quarterly.

Miria Grisot is Researcher at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo.

She holds a degree in Political Science with a specialization in Organization and Work from the University of Bologna, and a Ph.D. in Information Systems from the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo. Her main research interests are in the areas of information systems innovation, complexity and socio-technical systems, and organizational change, specifically in healthcare. She teaches medical informatics at the Institute of Health and Society, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo. She is a member of the Association of Information Systems.

Ole Hanseth is Professor at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo.

He studied informatics (combined B. Sci and M. Sci) at the University of Oslo and received his Ph.D. on informatics from the University of Gothenburg. His research focuses mainly on the interplay between social and technical issues in the development and use of large - scale networking applications and infrastructures. He has extensively researched issues related to information systems’ standardization and embeddedness within healthcare settings (as well as other domains like oil chemical and production industries and the Internet) and has been particularly active in theorizing the evolution of information infrastructures.

Polyxeni Vassilakopoulou is Associate Professor at the Department of Information Systems, University of Agder.

She studied industrial engineering (combined B. Eng and M. Eng) at the Technical University of Crete, and operations research at Columbia University (MSc). She received her Ph.D. from the National Technical University of Athens. Her research interests are related to information systems for complex work settings with a dual focus on system’s design and systems’ appropriation and use. Empirically, her research is focused in healthcare. Prior to joining academia she worked in management consulting for over a decade leading large-scale projects of ICT-enabled interventions within the services sector (Financial Services, Public Sector and Social Services).