Information Technology in Health Care Track

Track Chair

William Chismar
Department of Decision Science
University of Hawaii
2404 Maile Way, E-303
Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
Phone: (808) 956-7276
Fax: (808) 956 -9889
chismar@cba.hawaii.edu

Robert Mittman
The Institute for the Future
2744 Sand Hill Road
Menlo Part, California 94025
Phone: (650) 854-6322
Fax: (650) 854-7850
rmittman@iftf.org


Health Care Data Management

Minitrack Chairs

Donald J. Berndt
Dept. of Information Systems and Decision Sciences
College of Business Administration
University of South Florida
4202 E. Fowler Ave., CIS 1040
Tampa, FL 33620-7800
Tel: (813) 974-6769/5524
dberndt@coba.usf.edu
http://www.coba.usf.edu/isds
Paul Hu
Dept. of Information Systems and Decision Sciences
College of Business Administration
University of South Florida
4202 E. Fowler Ave., CIS 1040
Tampa, FL 33620-7800
Tel: (813) 974-5524
paulhu@coba.usf.edu
http://www.coba.usf.edu/isds

James Studnicki
College of Public Health
University of South Florida
4202 E. Fowler Ave.
Tampa, FL 33620
Chih-Ping Wei
Department of Information Management
College of Management
National San Yat-Sen University
Kaohsiung, Taiwan, ROC
Tel: +886-7-525-2000 Ext. 4729
cwei@sun1.mis.nsysu.edu.tw


Telemedicine

Description: Telemedicine is about the use of information and biomedicine technologies to support, facilitate or improve health care services and education/training among geographically distributed parties, including physicians, specialists, nursing staff and patients. Telemedicine has been considered as a potentially innovative and cost-effective mode of health care service collaboration or delivery, particularly by such large organizations as the military and vertically integrated health care organizations. Conducting research in this area is both promising and challenging due to a host of factors, including rapidly evolving technologies and their application complexity. At the same time, organizational issues, including technology adoption/diffusion/acceptance and cost benefits and cost effectiveness of telemedicine as an innovative form of investment in healthcare are gaining attention as well.

Topics: This minitrack invites research papers on the following topics:

Minitrack Chairs

Paul Hu
Dept. of Information Systems and Decision Sciences
College of Business Administration
University of South Florida
4202 E. Fowler Ave., CIS 1040
Tampa, FL 33620-7800
Tel: (813) 974-5524
paulhu@coba.usf.edu
http://www.coba.usf.edu/isds
Joseph K. Tan
Faculty of Medicine
Division of Health Policy & Management
University of British Columbia
5804 Fairview Ave
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3 MHA
Tel: 604-822-2737
josepht@interchange.ubc.ca


Data Mining For Health Care Quality, Efficiency, and Practice Support

Description: The key to a successful health care program is providing decision makers and analysts with timely, accurate, accessible information that allows them to make critical health care decisions. Data mining is a process that generates such information by finding meaningful new correlations, patterns, and trends by sifting through large amounts of data stored in repositories and by using pattern recognition, statistical and mathematical techniques applied to that information.

Topics: Papers are requested that provide demonstrations of how data mining is currently being used within the health care system, particularly for early detection (and ideally prevention) of inappropriate patient and provider behavior. Theoretical papers that propose new techniques will also be considered if they give an adequate comparison of their performance to existing methods in use in health. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Minitrack Chairs

Dr. Peri H. Iz
Health Care Financing Administration
Office of Strategic Planning
Research and Evaluations Group
7500 Security Blvd.
Mail Stop C3-19-26
Baltimore, MD 1244-1850, USA
Tel.: +1 410 786 6589
Fax: +1 410 786 5515
piz@hcfa.gov
izperi@iamdigex.net
Dr. Jim Warren
School of Computer & Info. Sci.
University of South Australia
Mawson Lakes SA 5095
AUSTRALIA
Tel.: +61 8 8302 3446
Fax: +61 8 8302 3381
warren@cs.unisa.edu.au

Dr. Lisa Sokol
Technical Director
MRJ Technology Solutions
10560 Arrowhead Dr.
Farifax, VA 22003
Tel: +1 703 277 1325
Fax: +1 703 277 1472
lsokol@mrj.com


Health Care: A Specialized Industry or a Novel Environment for IS Theory-Testing

Minitrack Chairs

Mike Chiasson
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Management, Scurfield Hall 
2500 University Drive, NW 
University of Calgary Calgary, AB T2N 1N4 
Tel: (403) 220-7331 
Fax: (403) 282-0095 
chiasson@ucalgary.ca http://mgis.mgmt.ucalgary.ca/hicss01
Elizabeth Davidson
Department of Decision Sciences
College of Business Administration
University of Hawai'i
2404 Maile Way
Honolulu, HI 96822
Tel:808-956-6657
davidson@cba.hawaii.edu http://mgis.mgmt.ucalgary.ca/hicss01


Privacy and Security for Health Information Systems

Description: This minitrack on privacy and health care will focus on two topics: new federal health regulations governing privacy, security and information systems that will soon be in effect; and the privacy and security issues posed by e-health, both through health websites, and point-to-point transactions. Privacy is emerging as one of the most critical-- and contentious-- issues in health and information technologies. Yet we know that protecting privacy is essential to ensuring that people have access to high quality health care. Without trust that the personal, sensitive information they share with their doctors will be handled with some degree of confidentiality, people will not fully participate in their own health care. In fact, out of fear that disclosure of their medical records may result in denial of insurance, loss of employment or housing, and stigmatization and embarrassment, people may withhold information from their doctors or simply avoid seeking care. As a result, they risk inadequate care or undetected and untreated health conditions. In turn, the integrity of research and public health initiatives that rely on complete and accurate patient data may also be compromised. Thus, protecting privacy and promoting health care quality and access are values that must go hand-in-hand.

Topics:

Minitrack Chairs

Janlori Goldman, Director
Health Privacy Project
Georgetown University Institute for Health Care Research and Policy
2233 Wisconsin Avenue N.W., Ste 525
Washington D.C. 20007
Tel: 202-687-0880
Fax: 202-687-3110
goldmajl@gunet.georgetown.edu
William G. Chismar
Department of Decision Sciences
University of Hawai'i
2404 Maile Way
Honolulu, HI 969822
Tel: 808-956-7276
Fax: 808-956-9889
chismar@cba.hawaii.edu


Strategies for Health Care Information Systems

Description: Hospitals are changing, both in their internal organization as well as in their relations to outside parties. Many hospitals grow by mergers, the patients become more aware, and the relations between care providers, insurers and medical professionals become more intense. The chain of healthcare organizations become more integrated. Therefore we can see a demand pull of information technology in the health care organizations. On the other hand we notice that information technology is transforming the way health care is delivered. Internal innovations such as computer-based patient records, hospital information systems, and decision support tools are beginning to affect the cost, quality, and accessibility of health care. Advanced information technology in health care, beyond basic HIS functionality, is often found in isolated "islands of information". Despite the incorporation of sophisticated technology in almost every other aspect of clinical practice, information technologies have not yet been fully embraced (US Congress, 1995).

The environment of the professional health care organizations handled in this minitrack is changing. Where it should be complex and stable, according to reference models, the environment is becoming more and more unstable. The size of most health care organizations in the world is growing by mergers and natural growth. This means that these professional organizations have to use strategic variables that they have never used before with a new technical system. There is need for structural changes to strengthen middle management but even more need for cultural changes to balance the autonomous and heteronomous powers in the organization. There is also a need to open up the healthcare organizations and E-health can help doing that. Information systems can contribute in these changes for the good and the bad. The key to picking the right information systems is still to be found.

Topics: Contributions for this mini-track will be considered for publication in the book Strategies for Healthcare Information Systems to be published by IDEA publishing in 2001.

Research contributions for this minitrack could address, but are not limited to:

Minitrack Chairs

Ton A.M. Spil
Faculty of Technology & Management
University of Twente
P.O. Box 217
7500 AE Enschede
The Netherlands
a.a.m.spil@sms.utwente.nl
Robert A. Stegwee
Faculty of Technology & Management
University of Twente
P.O. Box 217
7500 AE Enschede
The Netherlands
r.a.stegwee@sms.utwente.nl