Information technology - the unredeemed opportunity to reduce cultural and social capital gap between citizens and professionals in healthcare
: Koskinen Jani S. S., Knaapi-Junnila Sari
: Kimppa Kai, Whitehouse Diane, Phahlamohlaka
: 11th IFIP TC9 International Conference on Human Choice and Computers, HCC 2014
: 2014
: ICT and Society
: IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology
: 333
: 346
: 978-3-662-44207-4
: 978-3-662-44208-1
: 1868-4238
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44208-1_27
Patient empowerment and involvement are significant aims in long-term diseases, but short appointments give only little room for conversations. However, the patients need various information and support from healthcare professionals. So, there are pressures to develop new, effective ways for reciprocal communication in addition to the traditional ones.
Courses of action related in care, amongst other things, are unfamiliar to ordinary citizens, as for professionals operate on their home ground having power to control situations. Furthermore, healthcare jargon, which is often used in healthcare settings, is unintelligible for many laymans. This is problematic, because it may inhibit the aimed empowerment and involvement from happening.
In a light of the Coper-pilot´s alongside the former research´s findings, it seems that cultural and social gap between citizens´ and healthcare professionals´ may hinder their communication and mutual understanding. Information technology and salutogenic approach together are able to reduce that gap by strengthening layman's position.