About this Research Topic

Background

Preventing medical errors and improving patient health outcomes are challenges currently faced by healthcare systems all over the world. There is an international interest in exploiting the potential of information and communication technologies (ICT) solutions to enhance patient safety and healthcare quality. Over recent years efforts have been made into the development of a variety of eHealth services that aim to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare services through innovative approaches and to strengthen the opportunities for self-care, self-management and patient participation. eHealth services that provide patients with appointment bookings, and access to their medical data (e.g. lab results and medical notes) are increasing as a result of stronger patient empowerment and patients’ rights movements that campaign for easy access to medical data, patient participation in one's own care, and in the design and improvement of the healthcare systems including eHealth services. eHealth applications are also changing the patient-physician interaction which brings new challenges related to informed consent, privacy, and information security. It is important that these challenges are acknowledged, discussed and evaluated.

Online consultations with doctors and nurses are also rapidly gaining popularity but at the same time, questions are raised as to whether it is possible to provide good quality care through virtual online consultations. In tandem over recent years, technologies for self-monitoring and self-tracking have emerged allowing patients to collect a wide range of health-related data outside the clinic office. These technologies can educate patients about their own health and help them manage their illness; most importantly the technologies can help to identify actionable insights. Despite positive outcomes, it is still unclear how patient-generated data can be integrated into clinical practice.

Advances in eHealth innovations serve society as a whole and support the sustainability of healthcare systems. Globally, the implementation of these technologies in practice is usually expensive and limited in success, thereby creating new challenges for healthcare professionals, patients, healthcare providers, and healthcare organizations. In this call, we wish to explore dimensions related to eHealth services that increase transparency, access to both care and data, and reports on how patients, family caregivers, and healthcare professionals interactions can be impacted.

Prospective authors (researchers, academics, practitioners, and others) are cordially invited to submit original contributions covering completed or ongoing work related to the eHealth area. Submitted papers should present original, unpublished work, relevant to one of the topics. All article types are accepted, including reviews. The topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• transparency and access to health data (including the electronic health record)
• different stakeholders perspectives
• self-tracking and self-monitoring
• patient Empowerment and eHealth
• privacy and information security
• telemedicine and telehealth and their impacts on health
• the impact of technology usage on the well-being of the elderly
• design and implementation of eHealth Services
• ethical aspects
• accessibility aspects
• theories and research frameworks for understanding eHealth usage
• eHealth Literacy & digital divide
• technology acceptance and adoption
• gender perspectives
• patient-Doctor relationships.

Keywords: Patients, access to health data, self-tracking, patient empowerment, privacy, telemedicine, security, eHealth literacy, gender, patient-doctor relationship, eHealth

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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