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The purpose of this paper is to explore different health care professionals’ discourse about privacy – its definition and importance in health care, and its role in their day-to-day work. Professionals’ discourse about privacy reveals how new technologies and laws challenge existing practices of information control within and between professional groups in health care, with implications not only for patient privacy, but also for the role of information control in professions more generally.

The authors conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with n=83 doctors, nurses, and health information professionals in two academic medical centers and one veteran’s administration hospital/clinic in the Northeastern USA. Interview responses were qualitatively coded for themes and patterns across groups were identified.

The health care providers and the authors studied actively sought to uphold the protection (and control) of patient information through professional ethics and practices, as well as through the use of technologies and compliance with legal regulations. They used discourses of professionalism, as well as of law and technology, to sometimes accept and sometimes resist changes to practice required in the changing technological and legal context of health care. The authors found differences across professional groups; for some, protection of patient information is part of core professional ethics, while for others it is simply part of their occupational work, aligned with organizational interests.

This qualitative study of physicians, nurses, and health information professionals revealed some differences in views and practices for protecting patient information in the changing technological and legal context of health care that suggest some professional groups (doctors) may be more likely to resist such changes and others (health information professionals) will actively adopt them.

New technologies and regulations are changing how information is used in health care delivery, challenging professional practices for the control of patient information that may change the value or meaning of medical records for different professional groups.

Qualitative findings suggest that professional groups in health care vary in the extent of information control they have, as well in how they view such control. Some groups may be more likely to (be able to) resist changes in the professional control of information that stem from new technologies or regulatory policies. Some professionals recognize that new IT systems and regulations challenge existing social control of information in health care, with the potential to undermine (or possibly bolster) professional self-control for some but not necessarily all occupational groups.

To cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, contact tracing mobile apps (CTMAs) have been developed to trace contact among infected individuals and alert people at risk of infection. To disrupt virus transmission until the majority of the population has been vaccinated, achieving the herd immunity threshold, CTMA continuance usage is essential in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. This study seeks to examine what motivates individuals to continue using CTMAs.

Following the coping theory, this study proposes a research model to examine CTMA continuance usage, conceptualizing opportunity appraisals (perceived usefulness and perceived distress relief), threat appraisals (privacy concerns) and secondary appraisals (perceived response efficacy) as the predictors of individuals' CTMA continuance usage during the pandemic. In the United States, an online survey was administered to 551 respondents.

The results revealed that perceived usefulness and response efficacy motivate CTMA continuance usage, while privacy concerns do not.

This study enriches the understanding of CTMA continuance usage during a public health crisis, and it offers practical recommendations for authorities.

Studies on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) tracing apps have mostly focused on how to optimize adoption and continuous use, but did not consider potential long-term effects of their introduction. This study aims to analyse whether the characteristics of the recent introduction of tracing apps may negatively impact individuals' attitudes and intentions to adopt future tracking technology.

In an online experiment across three countries (Australia, Germany, UK), the authors measured how perceived benefits of COVID-19 tracing apps as well as specific government and campaign-related factors affect privacy concerns, attitude towards future tracking apps and intention to adopt. The authors manipulated the type of provider (governmental vs private) and the type of beneficiaries of the future tracking technology app (the individual alone or also the public) as determinants of adoption.

The authors find that privacy concerns towards the COVID-19 tracing apps negatively impact attitude and intention to adopt future tracking apps. Future adoption is more likely if the app is provided by the government, whereas additional benefits to the public do not positively stimulate adoption. Second, the study analyzed different factors, including perceptions on governments and the app introduction, as well as perceived benefits.

Taking the introduction of COVID-19 apps in different countries as a basis, the authors link both perceived benefits and contextual factors to privacy concerns, attitudes towards and intention to adopt the related technology in the future. The authors hereby clarify the responsibility of governmental actors who conduct large-scale technology introductions for the future diffusion of related technologies.

Blockchain technology enhances information management in healthcare supply chains by securing healthcare information and providing medical resource traceability. However, there is no decision framework to support blockchain implementation for managing information, especially in emerging economies’ healthcare supply chains. This paper develops a hierarchical decision model for implementing blockchain technology for information management in emerging economies’ healthcare supply chains.

This study uses 20 health supply chain experts in Ghana to rank 17 decision criteria for implementing blockchain for healthcare information management using the best-worst method (BWM) multi-criteria decision technique.

The results show that “security” and “privacy,” “infrastructural facility” and “presence of training facilities” are the top three critical factors impacting blockchain adoption in the health supply chain for healthcare information management. Other sub-factors are prioritized.

To implement blockchain effectively to enhance information management in the healthcare supply chain, health institutions, blockchain technology providers and state authorities should concentrate on the highly critical factors extracted from the study.

This is the first study that develops a hierarchical decision model for implementing blockchain technology in emerging economies' health supply chains.

The aim of this paper is to identify some of the challenges that need to be addressed to accelerate the deployment and adoption of smart health technologies for ubiquitous healthcare access. The paper also explores how internet of things (IoT) and big data technologies can be combined with smart health to provide better healthcare solutions.

The authors reviewed the literature to identify the challenges which have slowed down the deployment and adoption of smart health.

The authors discussed how IoT and big data technologies can be integrated with smart health to address some of the challenges to improve health-care availability, access and costs.

The results of this paper will help health-care designers, professionals and researchers design better health-care information systems.