Healthcare is characterized by close collaboration and information sharing among many distinct actors, who co-operate for the patient care in different temporal moments, also at a distance. In this context, availability to care givers of all relevant patient health data and of specific healthcare co-operative work supporting tools is fundamental for best patient treatment. We designed and imple...

An increasing global population, the rise in number of chronic disease patients and the threat of global epidemics have made the way for technology as a potential answer to many of these problems. Health insurance can contribute to the resolution of some of these issues but insurers need to transition from simple “Payers” to “Players” in order to achieve that. They need to become points of refe...

Family caregivers, the "second victims" or hidden patients in dementia care, are at risk for social isolation, stress, depression, and mortality. Telephone-based support (telesupport groups) represents a practical, low-burden, low-cost source of emotional support. The present study evaluated the feasibility and effectiveness of professionally led telephone-based support groups for female family...

Most of the research on health care user "quality of care" perspectives seeks discrete and measurable indicators to advance quality improvement (QI) goals. This lacks sufficiently grounded query about the meaning of "quality of care" for health users, and how context influences their ideas and experiences. We studied this between 2010 and 2011, repeatedly interviewing and shadowing 45 individua...