Virtual Communities in Health Care

2005 ◽  
pp. 121-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Demiris
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Virtual Communities

Virtual Communities in Health and Social Care

2010 ◽  
pp. 332-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maonolis Tsiknakis
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Care Services ◽  
Health And Social Care

This chapter provides an overview and discussion of virtual communities in health and social care. The available literature indicates that a virtual community in health or social care can be defined as a group of people using telecommunications with the purposes of delivering health care and education, and/or providing support. Such communities cover a wide range of clinical specialties, technologies and stakeholders. Examples include peer-to-peer networks, virtual health care delivery and E-Science research teams. Virtual communities may empower patients and enhance coordination of care services; however, there is not sufficient systematic evidence of the effectiveness of virtual communities on clinical outcomes. When practitioners utilize virtual community tools to communicate with patients or colleagues they have to maximize sociability and usability of this mode of communication, while addressing concerns for privacy and the fear of de-humanizing practice, and the lack of clarity or relevance of current legislative frameworks. Furthermore, the authors discuss in this context ethical, legal considerations and the current status of research in this domain. Ethical challenges including the concepts of identity and deception, privacy and confidentiality and technical issues, such as sociability and usability are introduced and discussed.

scholarly journals Professional Virtual Communities for Health Care Implementers: Impact of Participation on Practice

Iproceedings ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. e11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Connelly ◽  
Aaron Beals ◽  
Aaron VanDerlip ◽  
Koundinya Singaraju ◽  
Rebecca L Weintraub
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Virtual Communities

Virtual Communities in Health and Social Care

2011 ◽  
pp. 367-386
Author(s):  
Maonolis Tsiknakis
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Care Services ◽  
Health And Social Care

This chapter provides an overview and discussion of virtual communities in health and social care. The available literature indicates that a virtual community in health or social care can be defined as a group of people using telecommunications with the purposes of delivering health care and education, and/or providing support. Such communities cover a wide range of clinical specialties, technologies and stakeholders. Examples include peer-to-peer networks, virtual health care delivery and E-Science research teams. Virtual communities may empower patients and enhance coordination of care services; however, there is not sufficient systematic evidence of the effectiveness of virtual communities on clinical outcomes. When practitioners utilize virtual community tools to communicate with patients or colleagues they have to maximize sociability and usability of this mode of communication, while addressing concerns for privacy and the fear of de-humanizing practice, and the lack of clarity or relevance of current legislative frameworks. Furthermore, the authors discuss in this context ethical, legal considerations and the current status of research in this domain. Ethical challenges including the concepts of identity and deception, privacy and confidentiality and technical issues, such as sociability and usability are introduced and discussed.

Virtual Communities

2009 ◽  
pp. 122-155
Author(s):  
Ben Kei Daniel
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Learning Communities ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
General Overview

The growth of virtual communities and their continuous impact on social, economic and technological structures of societies has attracted a great deal of interest among researchers, systems designers and policy makers to examine the formation, development, sustainability and utility of these communities. Over the last two decades, the growth in research into virtual communities, though fairly diverse, can be broadly categorized into two dominant perspectives—technological determinism and social constructivism. The basic tenet of the technology determinism research is that technology shapes cultural values, social structure, and knowledge. This Chapter provides a general overview of research on virtual communities. It describes two particular types of virtual communities relevant to the analysis of social capital described in the book; virtual learning communities and distributed communities of practice. The goal of the Chapter is to provide an overall context in which social capital is reported in the book. The Chapter also describes other areas in which virtual communities are currently used. These include education, health care, business, socialization and mediating interaction among people in Diaspora.

Virtual Communities of Practice for Health Care Professionals

2011 ◽  
pp. 3986-3991
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Hanlis ◽  
Jill Curley ◽  
Paul Abbass
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Learning Organization ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Collective Inquiry ◽  
Virtual Communities Of Practice

Wenger is typically credited with the development of the metaphor of communities of practice where “learning requires an atmosphere of openness and the key is to build an atmosphere of collective inquiry” (Wenger, 1998). However, the focus of creating a sense of belonging as well as the formulation of knowledge as a social process is not as new. Rather, it can be found in the form of a learning community. Senge (1990) introduced this concept of the learning organization to explain strategies to enhance the capacity of members to consistently collaborate on mutual goals.

Supporting a Virtual Community for the Elderly

2011 ◽  
pp. 428-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis M. Camarinha-Matos ◽  
Filipa Ferrada
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Elderly People ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Technological Infrastructure ◽  
Community Concept ◽  
Human Actors

An important application context for virtual communities is elderly care. One of the key challenges facing modern societies is the increasing speed at which the population is aging. In Europe, for example, during the last three decades the number of people aged 60 years or more has risen by about 50%. Traditional approaches to care provision are based on support from either the relatives or the elderly care centers. Nevertheless, these two solutions have become increasingly insufficient due to (1) the impractical responsibility onto relatives¾given the fact that more and more family members have to work to secure steady incomes; (2) the costs of providing sufficient care centers, which leads to a relocation of the elderly people, often beyond their home communities; and (3) the fact that many elderly people preserve enough robustness to be in their homes, a situation that is often preferable to them, and as such, better for their welfare (Castolo, Ferrada, & Camarinha-Matos, 2004). This will inevitably place a considerable strain on resources and finances. To deal with this challenge, new ways of providing elderly assistance and care must be found, including the creation of a new technological infrastructure. An integrated elderly care system comprises a number of organizations, such as social security institutions, care centers/day centers, health care institutions and so forth, and involves the cooperation of a number of different human actors; for example, social care assistants, health care professionals, the elderly people and their relatives. If supported by computer networks and adequate assistance tools, such systems may evolve towards operating as a long-term virtual organization, and the various involved actors become part of a virtual community. Furthermore, virtual communities can bring the sense of community and of recognition, respect and belonging, which gives the elderly a strong feeling of usefulness along with better support for their own needs. In this context, the IST TeleCARE project (Camarinha-Matos & Afsarmanesh, 2002, 2004) was launched with the aim of designing and developing a configurable framework, based on mobile (software) agents, focused on the establishment of virtual communities for elderly support. In this article, the TeleCARE Time Bank virtual community concept is presented and the developed supporting infrastructure is discussed.

A critical analysis of the literature on the Internet and consumer health information

2005 ◽  
Vol 11 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 41-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
J A Powell ◽  
P Lowe ◽  
F E Griffiths ◽  
M Thorogood
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Consumer Health Information ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Consumer Health ◽  
Online Social Support

A critical review of the published literature investigating the Internet and consumer health information was undertaken in order to inform further research and policy. A qualitative, narrative method was used, consisting of a three-stage process of identification and collation, thematic coding, and critical analysis. This analysis identified five main themes in the research in this area: (1) the quality of online health information for consumers; (2) consumer use of the Internet for health information; (3) the effect of e-health on the practitioner-patient relationship; (4) virtual communities and online social support and (5) the electronic delivery of information-based interventions. Analysis of these themes revealed more about the concerns of health professionals than about the effect of the Internet on users. Much of the existing work has concentrated on quantifying characteristics of the Internet: for example, measuring the quality of online information, or describing the numbers of users in different health-care settings. There is a lack of qualitative research that explores how citizens are actually using the Internet for health care.

scholarly journals Attitudes Toward Health Care Virtual Communities of Practice: Survey Among Health Care Workers

10.2196/15176 ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (12) ◽  
pp. e15176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Yada ◽  
Milena Head
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Health Care Workers ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Source Credibility ◽  
Attitude Formation ◽  
Intention To Use ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
Virtual Communities Of Practice

Background Virtual communities of practice (VCoPs) have been shown to be an effective means for knowledge and research uptake, but little is known about why health care workers choose to use them. The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) is a theoretical model of persuasion that distinguishes between different routes of information processing that influence attitude formation and change. To date, no research has investigated the antecedents to these processing routes for VCoPs within a health care setting. In understanding these determinants, VCoPs can be appropriately designed to increase their chances of use and value among health care professionals. Objective Our aim is to explore how motivation and ability affect attitudes toward using VCoPs for those working in health care. Methods Data were collected from 86 health care workers using an online survey at two Canadian health care conferences. Participants were shown a mock VCoP and asked about their perceptions of the online platform and related technologies. The survey instrument was developed based on previously validated scales to measure participants’ ability and motivation toward using a VCoP. Attitudes were assessed both at the beginning and end of the study; intention to use the platform was assessed at the end. Results Ability (expertise with CoPs and VCoPs) was found to directly affect intention to use the system (P<.001 and P=.009, respectively) as was motivation (P<.001). Argument quality had the greatest effect on formed attitudes toward VCoPs, regardless of the user’s level of experience (lower expertise: P=.04; higher expertise: P=.003). Those with higher levels of CoPs expertise were also influenced by peripheral cues of source credibility (P=.005 for attitude formation and intention to use the system) and connectedness (P=.04 for attitude formation; P=.008 for intention to use the system), whereas those with lower levels of CoP expertise were not (P>.05). A significant correlation between formed attitude and intention to use the VCoPs system was found for those with higher levels of expertise (P<.001). Conclusions This research found that both user ability and motivation play an important and positive role in the attitude toward and adoption of health care VCoPs. Unlike previous ELM research, evidence-based arguments were found to be an effective messaging tactic for improving attitudes toward VCoPs for health care professionals with both high and low levels of expertise. Understanding these factors that influence the attitudes of VCoPs can provide insight into how to best design and position such systems to encourage their effective use among health care professionals.

Virtual communities in health care

2002 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 18-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Krcmar ◽  
Y. Arnold ◽  
M. Daum ◽  
J. M. Leimeister
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Virtual Communities
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