Introduction to Technology-Mediated Collaborations in Healthcare Minitrack

Collaboration technologies are being used in healthcare research, practice, and management. However, they have potential for even greater use especially in the light of healthcare reforms currently occurring throughout many countries and their greater emphasis on technology to facilitate superior healthcare delivery. Geographically dispersed health professionals can use collaboration technology to communicate with each other, review patient records, manage workflows, and improve the delivery of patient care. Similarly, geographically non-collocated researchers can collaborate with each other. The problem being addressed by this mini-track is encapsulated in an ontological framework in the figure below.