Developing Virtual Communities to Support Drug Policy Knowledge Exchange

Within Canada, there is a growing need in the area of drug policy to develop virtual communities to facilitate knowledge exchange between academics and policy-makers. Such collaborations are regarded as a way to make research relevant by influencing the policy-making process. This chapter presents an action case study of three drug policy groups participating in various virtual knowledge exchange activities. The experiences and lessons learned by each group participating in this study are provided. Recommendations and solutions to conduct successful virtual knowledge exchange meetings based on the findings of this research are also provided.

European E-Health Framework

European health systems are under mounting pressure to respond to the challenges of population ageing, citizens’ rising expectations, migration, and mobility of patients and health professionals. New technologies have the potential to revolutionize healthcare and health systems and to contribute to their future sustainability. However the organizational and regulatory environment of e-health has not progressed as rapidly as technology both in national and European level. The key issue in the European sphere is whether and to what extent it interferes with public health policy and should be treated separately from the more “traditional” healthcare. The proposed chapter will define e-health from a European perspective, present the different steps of the European policy in the field, insist on the organizational and regulatory issues that arise and discuss drives and barriers towards achieving pan European “patient-friendly” healthcare services.

The Amazing Impossibilities of Technology

Using this model of motivation, five factors are suggested which may either enable or constrain engagement. These factors are (1) synchronicity, (2) identification, (3) specified diagnosis, (4) organizational trust, and (5) accessibility.

An E-Health System for Promoting Wellbeing in the Elderly

The disproportionate increase in the world’s aged population, especially in developed countries, is one of the biggest challenges for developing health and social development policies. Developed countries are starting to include e-health applications in their health policies; these are effective programs that can reach large numbers of people at a much lower economic cost. The “Butler System” is an e-health application designed specifically for older people and the health professionals who work with this population. The Butler System is a multi-user platform with various levels of action, which includes resources that enhance elderly users’ social integration, learning, socio-emotional networks, leisure and training in emotional regulation skills. Furthermore, the platform allows practitioners to continuously monitor older people’s emotional states and offers various clinical resources and therapeutic activities. Tools such as the Butler System could become integral to supporting and promoting healthy habits for the elderly and assisting the health professionals who work with this population.

An E-Health System for Treatment of Childhood Obesity

Obesity is one of the greatest public health challenges of the 21st century and the most prevalent health problem among children in Europe. Treatment is complex due to the multiple causes of obesity that include many dimensions of children’s lives, such as nutritional habits, physical activity, and lifestyle. E-health technologies can be useful in this area; they may improve health care delivery and acceptability, facilitate the provision of interventions to wider populations, and improve treatment efficacy by taking advantage of new technologies such as the Internet and mobile technologies. The objective of this chapter is to describe an e-health platform called ETIOBE. It comprises three complementary applications connected in real time that support different components of weight loss treatment: the Clinical Support System (CSS), the Home Support System (HSS), and the Mobile Support System (MSS). It was designed to treat childhood obesity by improving treatment adherence, promoting the mechanisms of self-control in patients, obtaining the maintenance of patients’ achievements (reducing body weight), and preventing relapses by establishing healthy life habits.

Can Stored Data Answer All Questions

One often hears statements such as eighty percent of the questions can be answered by twenty percent of the answers, or other similar statements, indicating that a small set of answers are enough to answer most of the questions in a particular topical area. To investigate this statement, a set of 630 questions, which were sent to an on-line service, were analyzed. All the questions were about eating disorders and obesity. The conclusion is that the statement, which was investigated, was not true. There was a large variation of different questions, and even though some questions did appear more than once, it was much less than eighty percent of all questions. The chapter offers insight into different types of questions posted on-line in the area of eating disorders. From the study follows that to provide satisfactory answers to a large part of the questions, it is necessary to have humans answering the questions.

Virtual Worlds for Children with Medical Conditions

This chapter describes an innovative, technology-based intervention for children with critical medical conditions that utilizes the Zora virtual world. Most specifically, the chapter describes two experiences, one with post-transplant pediatric patients and the other with pediatric cancer patients who participated in Zora. The virtual experience was designed to address issues of school transition and medical adherence, while offering psychosocial support in the context of a virtual community of peers. The design of the Zora virtual world is informed by the Positive Technological Development (PTD) framework which was inspired by Positive Youth Development (PYD). In Zora, users can communicate with each other via real-time chat and participate in open-ended guided activities to create a social network of peers. They can also build the personal and public spaces in the virtual city, create interactive characters and write stories for three-dimensional objects.

Dynamic Stress Management

Different kinds of applications for self-help are available on the Internet today. Some aim to intervene with users’ life patterns such as negative stress exposure. It is not always an easy task to manage stressful life situations and to develop and maintain healthy living. It involves learning how to balance perceived demands from working and personal life, and to question underlying thoughts and beliefs. E-health communities can assist in this process through continuous interactions between community members. However, previous studies have shown that combining knowledge of health experts and the experiences of peers can create a good synergy. The question is how these findings can be applied to the area of stress management. In this chapter, the authors present a web-based self-help system for stress management based on a holistic view of actors and their different types of support. The system offers the user information in the form of research and real life stories, practical exercises (both text- and video-based), and the opportunity to interact with health experts and peers, all in an integrated way.

Internet-Based Chronic Disease Self-Management for Youth

Chronic health conditions in children and youth are important health problems that seriously affect all aspects of their everyday lives. There is growing recognition of the need to promote disease self-management in youth with chronic health conditions. While there is evidence of the effectiveness of self-management programs to improve health outcomes in pediatric chronic illnesses, there are barriers to youth receiving these services. Internet-based programs offer an innovative approach to improve the availability, accessibility, and acceptability of these programs. This chapter provides an overview of Internet-based chronic disease self-management treatment programs for children and youth. It defines and describes the underlying theories, processes, and content elements of Internet-based self-management programs. Practical tips for program development and evaluation in terms of improved health outcomes are also discussed based on the authors’ experience with developing the “Teens Taking Charge: Managing Arthritis Online” self-management program for adolescents with arthritis. Future directions for theory, research, and clinical practice are also described.

Australian Patient Organizations

Three citizen health organizations in Australia are examined for how they are consuming information and communication technologies. In particular, how they are actively domesticating and taming the internet as part of their everyday practices and how this is transforming participation, citizenship, and civil society in the health sector are explored. The organizations, Diabetes ACT, Health Care Consumers’ Association of the ACT, and AIDS Action Council of the ACT are all located in Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The chapter focuses on how each organization imagines and configures their communities and how this leads to differences in their ways of interacting with the internet.