Planning the final year of HIBA

Posted on by

The current project group gathered for a two-day work meeting in Turku/Åbo for reviewing  past and planning the forthcoming work during the final year of the HIBA project. Analysis of data from a set of focus group interviews conducted in 2018 is going on and data from a national survey conducted during the summer is about to start. There are several publications reporting new findings from the project coming out during the next few months and the project is also organising a panel session at the forthcoming Association for Information Science and Technology Annual Meeting in Melbourne, Australia on the role of information behaviour technology and service design.

What is usefulness and how to use it?

Posted on by

Noora, Heidi and Isto were participating in the 10th Conceptions in Library and Information Science Conference (CoLIS) in Ljubljana, Slovenia the week before midsummer. Heidi presented together with Isto a co-authored paper with Noora and Kristina titled The concept of usefulness in library and information science research discussing the notion of usefulness and its relation to other concepts and ways of seeing information, systems and services useful and approachable. The study is a part of HIBA project and aims at a better understanding of the different aspects of how e-health services can be experienced useful by their users.

Abstract

Introduction. There is not much doubt that information, information services and systems need to be useful. In this light, the relatively lack of conceptual elaboration of the concept of usefulness in the library and information science literature can be regarded as somewhat surprising.
Method. This paper provides a conceptual overview of the use of the notion of usefulness in library and information science literature, explicates its relation to key parallel concepts, and on the basis of an empirical vignette in the context of health information research, discusses the potential limits and advantages of referring to usefulness instead of and together with other related concepts.
Analysis. A review of literature relating to the concept of usefulness was conducted to examine how it has been used in library and information science.
Results. A close reading of the literature shows an overlap between related concepts but at the same time, diverging foci of interest in and emphasis on what and how information, information services and, for instance, information systems are considered beneficial or suitable for their users and particular uses.
Conclusion. There is a need for better conceptual clarity in the literature regarding usefulness and related concepts. The review shows that usefulness can be literally a useful concept for addressing the user and use (versus e.g. system, content or topic) perspective to engagements with people, services, systems and beyond.

New HIBA publications

Posted on by

HIBA research group has published new results from the project during the past months.

Huvila, I., Hirvonen, N., Enwald, H., & Åhlfelt, R.-M. (2019). Differences in Health Information Literacy Competencies Among Older Adults, Elderly and Younger Citizens. In Kurbanoğlu, S.; Špiranec, S.; Ünal, Y.; Boustany, J.; Huotari, M. L.; Grassian, E.; Mizrachi, D. & Roy, L. (Ed.), Information Literacy in Everyday Life. ECIL 2018. Communications in Computer and Information Science(pp. 136–143). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13472-313. Open access post-print of the article.

Abstract: To address the research gap on age-based differences in health information literacy (HIL), we investigated how younger (born 1960-) and older adults (1946-1960), and elderly citizens (-1945) differed from each other by their HIL competencies. Data were collected with an online survey of patients using the Swedish national electronic health record system. Altogether, 2,587 users responded. One-way ANOVA with post hoc tests revealed several differences between the groups: younger adults were less likely to value health information than older adults; older adults and elderly were least likely to compare information from multiple sources and had trouble in determining health information needs; older adults were most likely to have trouble understanding health terminology and the elderly to have difficulties in understanding medicinal package labels. The study shows that HIL is not necessarily improving or declining but adapting to challenges of advanced age.

Huvila, I.; Moll, J.; Enwald, H.; Hirvonen, N.; Åhlfeldt, R.-M. & Cajander, Å. (2019) Age-related differences in seeking clarification to understand medical record information. Information Research, 24(1), paper isic1834. Open access.

Abstract: Introduction Patient accessible electronic health records can be used to inform and empower patients. However, their use may require complementary information seeking since they can be difficult to interpret. So far, relatively little is known of the information seeking that takes place in connection to health record use, and especially the way it varies in different age groups. A better understanding of patients’ preferences of where and how to find explanatory information provides valuable input for the development of health information provision and counselling services.
Method. The analysis is based on the results of a national survey of Swedish individuals (N=1,411) who had used a national patient accessible electronic health record system (Journalen).
Analysis. The data were analysed in SPSS 24.0 using Kruskal-Wallis tests for detecting group-wise differences and Jonckheere-Terpstra tests for discovering age-related trends in the data.
Findings. Older patients were more likely to use a telephone and younger patients to use social contacts to ask for clarification. Generally, older adults born between 1946-1960 appear as passive information seekers.
Conclusion. Age groups differ in their preferences on how to seek clarification, which underlines the importance of a better understanding of individual differences in delivering not only technically but also intellectually accessible health information. Calling by telephone could be a habit of present older generations whereas, to a degree, searching information online could be a comparable habit of current younger generations.

HIBA at the Finnish Information Studies Symposium 2018

Posted on by

HIBA project is organising a session on health information at the Finnish national Information Studies Symposium 2018 in Turku/Åbo Finland with two papers presenting the findings from the project. Links to extended abstracts of all presentations can be found below.

Hälsoinformation och e-hälsa / Terveystieto ja e-terveys / Health
information and e-health

WIS 2018

Posted on by

The biannual conference Well-being in the information society was organized in Turku on August 27-29, 2018, with the theme “Fighting inequalities”. The conference strives to be multidisciplinary and attracts delegates from several disciplines and well-being was in this conference analyzed from different viewpoints including wealth, the digital world, social policy and health. Several of the presentations were of interest also for the project HIBA.

The first keynote speaker was Director Sascha Marschang from the European Public Health Alliance, who talked about opportunities and gaps in digital health in Europe. Challenges include an ageing society and growing numbers of non-communicable diseases, as well as barriers to healthcare access. A digital divide is still a reality in Europe with e.g. elderly, lower educated and minority groups excluded, and there is a need for digital health literacy, that is a complex concept and involves several competencies, including basic, digital, media and health literacies. eHealth can provide opportunities and complement conventional healthcare, it can engage people, be fun, timely, accurate, and tailored but cannot replace face-to-face contact and Sascha Marschang claimed that health and eHealth must work in harmony. He also called for research into actual use of eHealth!

Roland Trill from Flensburg University of Applied Science, Germany, continued on the topic health literacy and had combined the eHEALS scale and the Digital Health Literacy Instrument (DHLI) to study current digital health literacy of diabetes in Germany. He called for further research on digital health literacy and claimed that health care professionals are target groups for improving this literacy. Anne-Marie Tuikka (University of Turku) showed that the claims by the keynote speaker seemed to be true. She had studied nationwide data gathered by the National Institute for Health and Welfare and focused on the digital disability divide, defined as the gap between disabled and non-disabled people. The results showed that internet use was related to age, education level, marital status, and employment, and that people needing disability services used internet less than others. Internet can have an empowering impact on disabled people, but the results indicate that there could be a digital disability divide in Finland.

 

The conference chair, professor Reima Suomi, opening the WIS 2018 conference (photo: Gunilla Widén)

Nilmini Wickramasinghe from Deakin University, Australia, presented a study on the use of games for controlling diabetes and obesity. A pilot study already showed that there is an interest in using games for this purpose. Vitalija Petrulaitiene (Tampere University of Technology), on the other hand, presented and overview of how employee well-being can be supported through digital services, especially applications related to fitness, nutrition, or ergonomics. Marina Weck from Häme University of Applied Science presented digital assistive technology that means to use ICT for the support of everyday tasks and activities among elderly. A pilot study found that ageing people’s needs and preferences for digital assistive technology were positive, although they were not yet familiar with the latest devices or applications, and hence, for example, healthcare service providers could increase the utilization of technology and facilitate the integration of digital assistive technology. Hanna-Leena Huttunen (University of Oulu) had found that patients suffering from migraines are interested in using wearable sensors and mobile applications to manage their symptoms, especially to identify early symptoms and help them in everyday life.

The conference dinner was held at Turku Castle

Susanne Hämäläinen (Karelia University of Applied Sciences) and Päivi Sihvo (Savonia University of Applied Sciences) claimed that digitalization has not progressed as quickly as desired in social and health care and that both employees and citizens lack know-how and education about new technological developments. Digitalization should help customers and increase their welfare and that is why eProfessionals that can act as moderators between IT staff and health professionals are one important solution for digitalization. Tiina Nokkala (University of Turku, School of Economics) said that health information systems are not patient-centred, in the best case patients can look at their own medical records, but not add anything to them. There is a need for shared decision-making, and being able to make own entries can enhance feelings of management and empowerment among patients, but in order for patients to make their own entries in their records (e.g. blood sugar or blood pressure measurement data), there is a need to use similar metadata as for entries by professionals. Jani Koskinen from Turku University School of Economics, on his part, suggested that as modern healthcare relies strongly on technology and information systems there is also a special need for eHealth ethics. eHealth ethics could be the intersection of the traditional codes of ethics used within the two fields of healthcare and information technology or systems.

Kristina chaired a session on digital health and later presented a short paper by Hai Nguyen and herself based on first results from the survey of use and experiences of the online diabetes risk test at the website of the Finnish Diabetes Association. The paper is found in the proceedings. The results indicate that an active information-seeking style is sígnificantly related to intentions to seek more information in the case of increased risk of diabetes type 2, and that this has to be taken into consideration when providing information on websites offering self-assessments.

 

Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS 2018)

Posted on by

PACIS 2018 was organized in 26th to 30th June in Yokohama, Japan. It invited submissions in current and emerging areas of Information Systems research, especially those related to the conference theme “Opportunities and Challenges for the Digitized Society: Are We Ready?”

The annual conference offered keynote speeches and several concurrent tracks in addition to workshops. Tracks focused e.g., on smart cities, e-government, human computer interaction, IS education and e-learning and IS in healthcare.

The first keynote was given by Ikujirō Nonaka, emeritusprofessor, best known for his study of knowledge management. Nonaka has also proposed the SECI model, to present the spiraling knowledge processes of interaction between explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge.

Keynote by Nonaka

PACIS had attracted over 500 registered participants from all around the world. The conference took place in very modern Minato Mirai district in Yokohama.

Sight of Minato Mirai, the central business district of Yokohama.

Lunch with a view. Bentō lunch box provided at the conference.

HIBA-project presented work in progress by Nguyen, Eriksson-Backa and Enwald with the title: Preliminary results of a survey on user opinions and experiences on an online diabetes risk test.

Heidi Enwald presenting the poster by HIBA project.

Finland was nicely represented also as the best paper award was given to Finnish-Australian collaboration:

Ethical Evaluation of a Value Sensitive Persuasive System: Case Milky Way
by Liisa Kuonanoja (University of Oulu), Shahla Meedya (University of Wollongong), Khin Than Win (University of Wollongong) and Harri Oinas-Kukkonen (University of Oulu)

The conference proceedings and also our paper can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1aI6jwwAAF40h238qsR85n7Er1ZOdQFmf

 

MIE and VITALIS in Gothenburg, April 2018

Posted on by

Medical Informatics Europe (MIE) conference was arranged in Gothenburg, Sweden in 24.-26.4.2018. At the same time Scandinavian eHealth event, VITALIS, took place in the same premises.

MIE covers a wide range of topics relating to medical informatics – from health literacy, different eHealth tools to data mining.

The first MIE was hosted in Cambridge, UK in 1978 and therefore MIE2018 marked the 40th anniversary for the conference. MIE2018 offered around 200 oral and 150 poster presentations. In addition, there were around 50 workshops, demonstrations and tutorials to attend to.

MIE2018 and Vitalis

Tuesday started early with a set of sessions and workshops. From HIBA research group Heidi Enwald was one of the organizers and presenters of the workshop “Re-defining eHealth Literacy for the 21st century. Discussing the evolution of the concept from different perspectives”.

In the workshop and, also afterwards, different definitions and measures of eHealth literacy were discussed. It was seen that we also need to get forward from discussing these issues; we need to identify what differentiates eHealth literacy from other health related literacy concepts, what are the future skills and abilities that relate to this concept and how should they be addressed. Heidi Enwald represents HIBA group in eHealth literacy network that continues discussion around the topic.

After Opening ceremony a Keynote speech was given by Patricia Flatley Brennan, the director of National Library of Medicine.

Keynote speech by Patricia Brennan

She spoke, among other things, about data-powered health that includes optimizing medication effectiveness, more efficient pathogen detection and targeted therapies. She mentioned that the nature of evidence in evidence-based medicine is also about to change. Furthermore, data does not take care of itself and therefore, e.g., data savvy librarians are needed.

As mentioned, MIE2018 provided many overlapping sessions to choose from and the decision was not always easy. Aging did not rise as a topic in many presentations, but there were some. For instance, Madeleine Blusi from Umeå University talked about aging in rural areas and their project that utilizes participatory design and attempts to create a service for including aged people into social activities they would otherwise no longer be able to join.

Madeleine Blusi from Umeå University

The VITALIS exhibition area was also available to visit by the participants of MIE2018.

Several kind of meetings were made possible by MIE2018 and VITALIS

The exhibition mostly contained booths of Swedish eHealth companies and made possible also the discussions between, e.g., researchers and advocates of industry.

The proceedings book of the conference is open access and can be found from the website:

https://mie2018.org/home/proceedings/

Anticipating ageing

Posted on by

A new article Anticipating ageing: Older adults reading their medical records (full-text for subscribers) on older adults perceptions of reading their medical record and using e-health services, written in collaboration between HIBA project and researchers of Swedish DOME Consortium has been published in Information Processing & Management. A post-print version of the article can be found at http://www.istohuvila.se/node/560

Abstract

In spite of the general interest in health information behaviour, there is little earlier research on how older adults, who are still active in working life but approaching retirement, differ from other age groups. A survey with Swedish patients who had ordered and read their medical record was conducted to map the preferences and motivations of older adults (born 1946-1960) ordering a copy of their medical record, and using medical records based e-health and information services in the future. The results do not indicate an obvious linear relationship between age and motivation to use online health information but show several differences between the age groups. Older adults were less interested in communication with their medical doctor by e-mail. Yet, they had searched health information in the Internet during the last week more likely than young. They were more inclined to read medical record to get an overview of their health than young, but less confident that they understood most of the content or turn to their family and friends to seek help than the elderly. When compared to younger adults and elderly people, older adults are the least confident and least motivated to use online health information. It is suggested that older adulthood can be seen as a transitory stage of life when the need of health information increases and engagement with health changes. The results agree with prior research on the potential usefulness of (online) medical records as a way to inform citizens. However, specific provision strategies may be necessary to match the needs and motivations of different age groups.

HIBA workshop in Uppsala

Posted on by

HIBA researchers Isto Huvila, Noora Hirvonen, Heidi Enwald and Kristina Eriksson-Backa met each other in Uppsala in October 10th to 11th 2017 to discuss ongoing studies and plan future research. Moreover, the research group met researchers from the DOME consortium to share ideas and talk about potential common research interests.

Isto Huvila

Isto talking about the HIBA project

DOME AND HIBA researchers

DOME and HIBA researchers discussing

HIBA researchers

HIBA researchers having dinner at Aaltos

Osallistu terveysriskitestejä koskevaan tutkimukseen!

Posted on by

HIBA-projekti selvittää kokemuksia e-terveyspalveluista. Nyt käynnissä olevassa tutkimuksessa selvitetään riskitestipalvelujen käyttöön liittyviä kysymyksiä.

Vastaamalla kyselyyn voit auttaa e-terveyspalveluiden kehittämistä. Kyselyn vastaukset käsitellään luottamuksellisesti, ja ne tulevat ainoastaan tutkimuskäyttöön. Vastaukset eivät sisällä henkilökohtaista tietoa ja niitä käsitellään siten, että yksittäiset henkilöt eivät ole tunnistettavissa.

Jos et ole käyttänyt ennen Diabetesliiton diabetes-riskitestiä, tee testi ennen kyselyyn vastaamista.

Vastaa tutkimuskyselyyn tästä.