Transcript COMM 3302 eHealth & Telemedicine

COMM 3302
eHealth & Telemedicine
Shawn McCombs
UH School of Communication
http://soc.class.uh.edu/~smccombs
 2006 UH School of Communication - Health Communication Lecture Series - All Rights Reserved
Public Services Online:
ICTs and the Digital Divide
COMM 3302
eHealth & Telemedicine
Shawn McCombs
UH School of Communication
http://soc.class.uh.edu/~smccombs
Topics
Key Terms
ICTs: The Good, Bad, and Ugly...
Closing Digital Divide
delivering health communication in an
online world: the Potential of Online
Services
The Need for Online Community Building
Public Services Online
•ICTs
•Health
•eHealth
•Digital
(Technology)
Diffusion
•Digital Divide
•Synchronous
Communication
•Asynchronous
Communication
•Patient
•Accessibility
Key Terms
•Interpersonal
Communication
•Internet
•World Wide Web
•eMail
•Internet Protocols
•Newsgoups
•Chat / IM
•Flaming
•Nonverbal
Communication
•Insatiability
Major Topics:
•SES
•Technological
Imperative
Overview
The World Wide Web is changing the
World Wide Ways that we communicate
and consume public services.
Increases in population, longevity, and
technology, coupled with human
insatiability, dictate demand; demand
drives development; development
improves efficiency; efficiency equals
choices.
Overview, Continued...
In the United States, 55% of individuals
with Internet access reported using the net
to get health or medical information.
In Europe, 23%of Internet users claimed to
use the net to access health information.
•
*Significance = eHealth infrastructure in GB and Socialism.
Overview, Continued...
•eHealth Communication: Health
Promotion efforts that are mediated by
computers and other digital
technologies.☤
ICTs: The Good, Bad, and Ugly
Government versus the People: Public and
Government Services Online
At the Outset...
•eHealth & Telemedicine is NOT the
catch-all-save-all that some make it out
to be;
•It’s just another product of modern
technology and evidence that
Convergence in Mass Media and
Communication is real.
Public Services Online
Internet Communication Technologies dominate
modern living
Technology changes at a much greater rate than
social living trends and physiological modifications
(physical evolution)
Initial government attempts at ICT adoption met
with skepticism by the public
The feeling’s Mutual...
Evidence mounting of success in other modern,
Socialist countries
Public Services Online Continued...
Many governments and public institutions
are now using ICTs (information and
communication technologies) to change
the ways that public services are
delivered.
One of the key objectives of electronic
public services is to achieve greater social
inclusion and equality of access across
different sectors of society.
• Unfortunately, the people who often face the greatest
Public Services Online Continued...
An international review of the distribution
of online governance revealed a digital
divide whereby some regions of the world
and some sectors of society had adopted
online technology (mainly the Internet)
more extensively than others.
If You Build It: ...Will They Come?
Closing the Digital Divide
Approaches to Online Delivery
Looking at: Kiosks
Internet
Interactive Digital Television
Closing the Digital Divide
•Digital Divide: Coined in the 1990s,
describes the perceived growing gap
between those who have access to and the
skills to use ICT and those who, for
socioeconomic and/or geographical reasons,
have limited or no access.
*www.digitalstrategy.govt.nz/templates/Page____60.aspx
Closing the Digital Divide, Continued...
Digital Divide ≠ Underdeveloped, ThirdWorld Countries:
- also effected by demographics often
overlooked in this country: low SES,
elderly,
the temporarily displaced...
- Homeless man in NY becomes Millionaire
No problem for young suburbanite males
No $$$ means No Access
- Unless you don’t mind using the library ☺
Closing the Digital Divide, Continued...
Women are more likely to seek online
health information then men.
Women worry more than men about the
reliability of online health information.
Closing the Digital Divide, Continued...
Big Brother wants us to use e-Services in
general - and they’re dangling the
proverbial carrot:
-
IRS and random free eFile
-
Other examples, but the idea here is that if it works for
the IRS, it can work for anyone!
Approaches to Delivering Online
Public Services
Closing the Digital Divide also means
providing as many delivery channels as
possible:
Mediums (Media) for delivery:
- Touch-Screen Technology (Kiosk)
- The Internet (Internet Communication Technologies)
- iDTV
Success means finding the resources
(channels) that work among the
sometimes saturated, content-rich
alternatives.
Approaches to Delivering Online Public
Services, Continued...
Your Tax $$$ hard at work: Uncle Sam is
always on a budget (well, maybe not
always)
Let’s not forget intellectual property and
copyright requirements - who owns all this
crap anyway?
How in the world can the Gvt assure the
people that the information they are
receiving is actually theirs - and not spam,
spoofery, etc.?
Approaches to Delivering Online Public
Services, Continued...
One hope is that online health provision
will cultivate a climate of self-help and
preventative medicine that will take some
of the strain off mainstream health
services.
Conversely, better-informed citizens may
ask more questions of the doctors, taking
up more of their time during consultations,
with additional costs to health providers
and their employers.
Approaches to Delivering Online Public
Services, Continued...
To fully address the needs and wants of
the public, digitalized public services
should allow for effective two-way
communication. The audiences should be
made to feel that there voices are heard,
even without the aide of interpersonal
interaction.
But I Like Standing
In Line: ...My Browser is Too Slow!
- Potential: Making it all worthwhile
- Online Manifest Destiny - Technical
Determinism
The Potential of Online Public
Services
Unfortunately, government services are
often stimulated by a technological
imperative without a clear idea of what the
public wants.
The government sometimes has an
unrealistic view of the level of the interest,
as well as the competence of citizens to
utilize interactive media technologies.
The Potential of Online Public
Services, Continued...
E-mail is it - the most popular app on the
web...
WWW is second; searching for Health
issues a popular ritual.
A survey of European Union countries
revealed that nearly one in four Europeans
(23%) claimed to use the Internet to obtain
health information.
In Europe: Order of importance:
- Health professionals
(doctors / pharmacists)
- Established Mediums
The Potential Impact of Online
Networks
Users can become message senders as
well as receivers.
Normal courtesies of face-to-face
communication often can break down in
the electronic environment.
Individuals may become more
argumentative, angry and ruder, a
phenomenon know as flaming.
• This is largely due to the absence of nonverbal cues, which
often leads to misunderstanding the meaning behind another
person’s remarks.
The Potential Impact of Online
Networks, Continued...
On a positive note, a lack of inhibition
could encourage patients to disclose more
about their symptoms to medical
professionals than they normally would in
a face to face meeting.
The New eSandbox: Playing Nice
and Learning To Share!
- The Need for Online Community Building
- Establishing Effective Online Health
Communication Public Forums
Establishing Effective Electronic
Public Forums
Online communications engage users to
become active participants.
Problems with regulation:
To some degree, regulation of a public electronic
forum (especially the Internet) would be viewed as an
infringement of free speech.
Participants in electronic communities do not agree
among themselves on the norms that should govern
dialogue about public affairs.
Equitable Roll Out
Shifts in the technology of political or
governmental communication threaten to
disenfranchise those who cannot enjoy
access to online technologies because of
their income, location, physical handicaps,
or language skills.
Many people will still be unable to utilize
electronic government services unless
governments themselves take initiatives to
provide public access.
Equitable Roll Out, Continued...
Not only will the physical availability of
digital technologies vary between urban
and rural areas, varying degrees of
computer literacy among different
segments of society will also affect
eventual take-up of these services.
This divide may occur within nations as
well as across them.
Equitable Roll Out, Continued...
Interactive digital television has been
promoted as the emerging mass medium
that can overcome the digital divide.
Fewer than half the individuals with access
to iDTV have converted to digital television
reception.
Only 15% of digital television subscribers
use the interactive facilities.
Barriers to Innovation in Public
Services
A failure to standardize online systems
across different parts of large government
organizations can create confusion among
employees and outside users and impede
online service establishment.
Some corporate cultures are not comfortable trying
new ways of doing business.
Over centralization of government is
another restricting factor because it can
reduce opportunities for innovation at the
local government level.
Barriers to Innovation in Public
Services, Continued...
Limited financial resources for introducing
technological innovation and anxieties
among staff caused by fears of
employment cuts, job reorganization, and
geographic redistribution.
Full scale online services require adequate
organizational resources. This means that
staff must be available to maintain the
services, and have received the training to
do this job.
Additional Reading, Cites:
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/tecdet/tdet07.html
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/index2.html
http://www.smartstate.qld.gov.au/strategy/strategy05_15/gloss
ary.shtm
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3677/is_200004/ai_n89
02843
More To Come...
COMM 3302
eHealth & Telemedicine
Shawn McCombs
UH School of Communication
http://soc.class.uh.edu/~smccombs
 2006 UH School of Communication - Health Communication Lecture Series - All Rights Reserved