Medical CSCW
Overview
 
The global healthcare industry is charging ahead on the path to practice-wide and nation-wide computerization on the heals of exciting developments in electronic health record
Electronic Health Record
An electronic health record is an evolving concept defined as a systematic collection of electronic health information about individual patients or populations...

, medical imaging
Medical imaging
Medical imaging is the technique and process used to create images of the human body for clinical purposes or medical science...

, and ubiquitous computing
Ubiquitous computing
Ubiquitous computing is a post-desktop model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities. In the course of ordinary activities, someone "using" ubiquitous computing engages many computational devices and systems...

 fields. While the prospects for benefits such as increased quality of care and increased return on investments abound, we must also address the critical need by systems designers, healthcare decision makers, and care providers to deal with the underlying socio-technical implications of theses technologies and how it affects workflow, coordination, and collaboration in medical practice.
Quotations

You are now fixed at the mercy of no governor that comes to make his fortune great; you shall be governed by laws of your own making and live a free, and if you will, a sober and industrious life. I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress his person. God has furnished me with a better resolution and has given me his grace to keep it.

Letter to those already residing in Pennsylvania (1681)

Any government is free to the people under it where the laws rule and the people are a party to the laws.

Frame of Government

No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.

True religion does not draw men out of the world but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it. Full title: Some Fruits of Solitude In Reflections And Maxims

There is nothing of which we are apt to be so lavish as of Time, and about which we ought to be more solicitous; since without it we can do nothing in this World. Time is what we want most, but what, alas! we use worst; and for which God will certainly most strictly reckon with us, when Time shall be no more.

The Preface

 
x
OK