Health informatics applications will be a cornerstone of the next generation healthcare delivery system. These applications will support the delivery of safe, patient-centered care, and collaborative care delivery. The complexity of modern healthcare is delivered by many different specialties, to many different patients with complex diseases and comorbidity. A one size fits all approach is not adequate to reach the triple aim of improving the patient experience of care, improving the health of populations, and reducing the per capita cost of healthcare. Health informatics applications must rather be built to be adaptable and sensitive to the complex contexts where they will be used. The health informatics community has long been interested in the role that context plays in the design, implementation and evaluation of Health IT. We have come to realize that context is not just a passive characteristic that impacts Health IT usage but rather is embedded in the core of the users, processes and outcomes that Health IT interacts with. Therefore, we need better approaches to study and understand its impact on Health IT usage in different healthcare settings. This book contains the conference papers from CSHI 2017 - Delivering 21st Century Healthcare - Building a Quality-and-Efficiency Driven System. It contains papers on a variety of topics that are divided into four sections: Theoretical approaches to investigate context sensitive health informatics to generate robust evidence, Redesigning healthcare work practices, Patient participation in healthcare design and redesign, and Human factors and usability. The 2017 CSHI conference continues our efforts to develop robust scientific evidence on context and Health IT.

Healthcare information technologies are now routinely deployed in a variety of healthcare contexts. These contexts differ widely, but the smooth integration of IT systems is crucial, so the design, implementation, and evaluation of safe, effective, efficient and easy to adopt health informatics involves careful consideration of both human and organizational factors. This book presents the proceedings of the Context Sensitive Health Informatics (CSHI) conference, held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in August 2013. The theme of this year’s conference is human and sociotechnical approaches. The Human Factors approach is distinctly design-driven and aims to optimize performance, safety and users’ sense of well-being associated with their use of a system through the application of user-centered systems design and evaluation. The papers and presentations included here are grouped under the topics: patients and IT; usability test and evaluation; work tasks and related contexts; human factors and simulation; and context and systems design, and outline theories and models for studying contextual issues and insights related to how health information technologies can be better designed to accommodate different healthcare contexts. Healthcare organizations, health policy makers and regulatory bodies globally are starting to acknowledge this essential role of human and organizational factors for safe and effective health information technology. This book will be of interest to all those involved in improving the quality of healthcare worldwide.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted many global industries, none more so than healthcare, and has necessitated the need for health informatics innovations that can bridge time and space to provide timely care. It has also emphasized the need for a system-level informatics infrastructure to support the healthcare management of populations at a macro level, while also providing the necessary support for front line care delivery at a micro level. However, the need for change at a fast pace does not remove the need for an evidence base to support health technologies. This raises fundamental questions about how the informatics tools required can be delivered at pace without compromising the quality and safety of such tools. This book presents papers from the biennial conference on Context Sensitive Health Informatics, CSHI 2021, held as a virtual event on 15 and 16 November 2021. The theme of the 2021 conference was: The Role of Informatics in Global Pandemics, and this book includes 18 papers on a variety of topics, divided into 4 sections: health information management in the COVID-19 context; implementation of new practices and technologies in healthcare; sociotechnical analysis of task performance and workload in healthcare; and innovations in design and evaluation methods of health technologies. The book provides an overview of innovative health information systems rooted in robust scientific research on context and health information technology, and will be of interest to all those working in the field of health informatics.

Context is key in the design, implementation and evaluation of health information technology. Healthcare systems around the world are in transition; adopting technologies to deal with the problems of aging populations, increased numbers of chronically ill patients and limited resources. But a 'one size fits all' approach is not the answer, and may limit those local healthcare system innovations that are so crucial to the development of health informatics. Even the most advanced systems will fail to achieve the desired outcomes if context is not taken into account. This book presents the proceedings of the Context Sensitive Health Informatics (CSHI) conference, held in Curitiba, Brazil, in August 2015. Context sensitive health informatics is about health information technologies and their environments, and the 26 papers included here examine how health informatics systems are developed, implemented and evaluated in a complex environment of many places, many users, many uses and in many contexts. The book is divided into four themes: different users in different contexts; evaluating for context through usability testing and ensuring patient safety; organizational and social issues in different places; and understanding different contexts using theory. This overview of the research and experience critical to ensuring the successful introduction and adaptation of healthcare systems to new countries, contexts and healthcare settings will be of interest to all those involved in improving the quality of healthcare worldwide.

The digital transformation of healthcare delivery remains a work in progress, and contextual variation continues to be one of the barriers to the development of sustainable health information technology. Context-sensitive health informatics concerns health information technologies and their environments, which may be people such as patients, users, designers and evaluators, but also non-human constructs such as organizations, work practices, guidelines and protocols, or buildings and markets. This book presents papers from CSHI 2019, the international conference on Context Sensitive Health Informatics, held in Lille, France, on 23 and 24 August 2019. The subtitle of the conference was Sustainability in Dynamic Ecosystems, and the thirty papers included here are divided into six sections: understanding organizational contexts; towards sustainable EHR; different contexts for medication errors and patient safety; methods and models to study contexts for health information systems; citizens in health contexts; and designing and evaluating in contexts. Two keynote speeches from the conference are also included. With its focus on context sensitivity and sustainability in digital healthcare, the book will be of interest to all those working in the field of health informatics.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace at which innovative health technologies are being designed, developed, and implemented. This inevitably presents new risks and challenges, not least, how to ensure that these technologies are appropriate for particular environments. In this sense, ‘environments’ may be people in various roles (e.g. patients, users, designers, evaluators) or non-human constructs such as organizations, work practices, guidelines and protocols, buildings, and markets. This book presents papers from CSHI 2023, the latest in the series of biennial conferences on Context Sensitive Health Informatics, held in Sydney, Australia, on 5 and 6 July 2023. The theme of CSHI 2023 was Context Sensitive Health Informatics and the Pandemic Boost, and the book includes 19 papers and 7 poster abstracts covering a variety of topics. These are divided into 5 sections: clinician perceptions and use of health technologies; workforce development in health informatics; aligning workflows and work systems to health technologies; co-design, equitable evaluation, and sustainable implementation of digital health tools; and big data and information management. The book provides an overview of the latest health information systems and of recent research in the area of context and health information technologies, and will be of interest to all those working in the field of health informatics.

Digital technology has become integral in the fields of health and care, and a number of recent reports have stressed the importance of equipping health and care staff with the skills and knowledge they need to use such technology effectively. Numerous failures of digital projects in the health and care sectors have demonstrated that simply relocating IT generalists into these specialist fields is not a guaranteed formula for success; the unique complexities of the typically under-resourced legacy infrastructures of health and care create challenges that demand specific education and training. This book presents the proceedings of the European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI) 2022 Special Topic Conference (STC), held in Cardiff, Wales, on 7-8 September 2022. The theme of STC 2022 was Digital Professionalism in Health and Care: Developing the Workforce, Building the Future, which emphasized the vital need for professional education, training and continuing development of the health and care informatics workforce. The 30 full papers and 5 posters in this book cover a broad range of topics and methods in informatics education and training, and include a small selection from the wider sub-domains of biomedical informatics. Providing a valuable overview of current methods and training, the book will be of interest to a wide range of professionals working in healthcare today, especially those involved in equipping the workforce with the skills they will need for the digital future.