Information Technology – The Unredeemed Opportunity to Reduce Cultural and Social Capital Gaps between Citizens and Professionals in Healthcare

Abstract

Patient empowerment and involvement are significant aims in longterm 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 professionals operate on their home ground having the power to control situations. Furthermore, healthcare jargon, often used in healthcare settings, is unintelligible for many laymen. This is problematic because it may inhibit the aimed empowerment and involvement from happening. Key findings from Coper-pilot research project alongside the former research´s findings indicate that cultural and social gap between citizens´ and healthcare professionals´ may hinder their communication and mutual understanding. Information technology and salutogenic approach together can act as means to reduce that gap by strengthening layman's position.

An Unclear Question: Who Owns Patient Information?

“…The main practical contribution of Datenherrschaft is this paradigm shift -which it also supports from a legislative standpoint -and its strong support for patients' sensemaking of their health and life [14]. This is crucial in healthcare where healthcare professionals and especially doctors, rather than patients, have maintained control of the medical path and information [15].…”

The concept of Datenherrschaft of patient information from a Heideggerian perspective

“…The main practical contribution of Datenherrschaft can be summed up to be this paradigm shift – which is also supported from the legislative direction – which gives strong support for the patient’s sense-making of health and life (Lahtiranta et al , 2015). This is crucial in healthcare where the healthcare professionals and especially medical doctors have traditionally possessed the control of the medical path and information rather than the patient (Koskinen and Knaapi-Junnila, 2014).…”