„Online health platforms: patient data, evaluative infrastructures, and health citizenship“ is an international research project that will examine the role of digital technologies in reshaping the healthcare sector in the U.S., U.K. and Germany.
Online platforms, as found in healthcare, enable new forms of connectivity between physicians and patients. They promise patient empowerment, increased transparency and improvements in care through the publication of patient reviews. They also create monetary value from user data, advertising, or service offerings for healthcare providers. The design of evaluative infrastructures-networks of interacting technologies such as algorithms, ratings, rankings, and Big Data-help to connect the goals of empowerment and transparency with the commercial imperatives of the platforms.
Despite the ubiquity and growing importance of health platforms, their impact on social and economic interactions and on our understanding of health citizenship is still unclear. This project therefore aims to better understand the relationships between platform promises, business models, evaluative infrastructures, and their impact on healthcare. In the first phase of the project, the project leaders aim to build a complete database of online health platforms in the three countries and collect exploratory data through interviews with platform operators. Subsequent phases of the project will focus on how providers and patients interact with and through the various platforms.
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Letzte Änderung: 6. February 2023