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Call For Papers - Special Issue

Submission Due Date: July 1, 2010

Special Issue On User-Driven Healthcare and Evidence-based Medicine

http://www.igi-global.com/Bookstore/TitleDetails.aspx?TitleId=41022&DetailsType=CallForPapersSpecial

Guest Editors:
Susan Ross, MD, FRCPC

Introduction

User-Driven Healthcare (UDH) is part consumer-driven healthcare, part narrative medicine, and part Health 2.0. It stems from a concept of participatory healthcare whereby all stakeholders, enabled by information, software, and cyber-community, focus on healthcare value. But where does Evidence-based Medicine (EBM) fit into this framework? It is sometimes forgotten that EBM is a three-legged stool, comprised of the triad of evidence +provider expertise + patient preferences. In this EBM framework, provider expertise is needed to bridge the inferential gap between population-based evidence and the individual patient. And each patient's values and preferences should narrow that inferential gap further. But since the introduction of EBM nearly two decades ago, the primary focus of EBM proponents has been on Evidence, at the expense of patient preferences and provider expertise. Perhaps this is why the promise of EBM to foster the most efficient and high quality healthcare has not yet been realized.

Objective of the Special Issue

This Special Issue will focus on the following questions: Is the recent emergence of User Driven Healthcare really a new, post-EBM paradigm for healthcare, or just an overdue consideration of the other two legs of the original EBM stool? How might this trend affect all stakeholders?

Recommended Topics

Topics to be discussed in this special issue include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Developing valid patient-level evidence using the Web
  • Evidence generation—clinical research strategies using social media and mobile technologies
  • Examples of UDH to a) help formulate the right questions to ask in EBM; b) develop answers to those questions; c) disseminate the answers to patients and providers with a need to know; and d) test the impact of UDH-generated Evidence on patient outcomes
  • Helping online patients sift the ‘wheat’ from the ‘chaff’—information management for patients in an EBM world
  • How to incorporate patient preferences and values into ambulatory care decision-making (i.e., into the 10 minute visit)
  • Measuring the impact of UDH on patient outcomes
  • Patient-level decisions vs. population-level evidence (bridging the inferential gap)
  • Pharmaceutical communication strategies using social media—impact on healthcare quality and costs in an EBM framework
  • Place of social media in EBM—patient and physician online communities
  • Practice of UDH vs. EBM around the world
  • Regulatory issues of evidence dissemination by industry using social media in healthcare
  • Statistical and other evaluative methods to assess the validity and reliability of evidence developed using social media and mobile technologies
  • Trends in N-of-1 studies, and their relevance to EBM and UDH
  • Use of collective intelligence to solve healthcare problems for individuals and communities

    Submission

    Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit papers for this special theme issue on User Driven Healthcare and Evidence-based Medicine on or before July 1, 2010. Submissions received after this date will be reviewed for possible publication in subsequent issues of the journal. All submissions must be original and may not be under review by another publication. INTERESTED AUTHORS SHOULD CONSULT THE JOURNAL’S GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSIONS at http://www.igi-global.com/development/author_info/guide.asp. All submitted papers will be reviewed on a double-blind, peer review basis. Papers must follow APA style for reference citations.

    All submissions and inquiries should be directed to the attention of:

    Susan Ross
    Guest Editor
    Email: [log in to unmask]