[AISWorld] CFP - AMCIS 2018 Minitrack: Virtual Communities and Social Media in Health Care

[Brenda L. Eschenbrenner]

Call for Papers

24th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS’18)
August 16-18, 2018
New Orleans, LA

Track:       Virtual Communities and Collaboration
Minitrack: Virtual Communities and Social Media in Health Care

Description:
Virtual environments provide new platforms for individuals to acquire and share information regarding health concerns.  Virtual communities can provide an additional means for patients to provide support to one another facing similar health issues.  Healthcare providers are utilizing virtual environments to connect with patients and consult with other providers, while healthcare organizations are creating new ways to manage and improve healthcare operations.  Virtual environments present new channels to educate the public on various topics such as healthcare crises or managing chronic diseases.  It also provides opportunities to garner information from individuals to identify emerging issues, such as flu epidemics.  However, concerns also arise with leveraging virtual environments for healthcare-related purposes, such as patient privacy and information accuracy.

Hence, this minitrack seeks to explore the opportunities as well as the issues associated with virtual communities and social media in health care.  We encourage paper submissions that study the development, use, and assessment of virtual communities and social media in healthcare, which can be from a variety of perspectives (e.g., patient, healthcare provider, and healthcare organization).  We welcome papers that study the application of virtual communities and social media in this context as well as challenge such applications.  This minitrack is open to both theoretical and empirical studies, and is open to all research methods (e.g., survey, field study, case study, experimentation).

Potential topics may include (but are not limited to):

  *   Development of frameworks for evaluating virtual communities and social media in health care
  *   Theoretical models describing the development, use, and assessment of virtual communities and social media in health care
  *   Research on novel, innovative uses of virtual technologies and data analytics for health care communities and social media
  *   Examinations of implementations, adoptions, and outcomes of virtual communities and social media in health care along with factors influencing these activities
  *   Meta-analyses and meta-syntheses of research and the implications for virtual communities and social media in health care
  *   Issues, limitations, and barriers surrounding virtual communities and social media in health care

Submission Process:
Paper submissions must be made electronically through AMCIS 2018 Manuscript Submission Site https://confs.precisionconference.com/~amcis18/.  Papers will be peer reviewed using a double-blind system.

Important Dates:
Jan. 15, 2018:  Submission system opens

Feb. 28, 2018:  Completed Research and ERF submissions due

April 18, 2018:  Initial decisions for Completed Papers and ERFs

More information is available at http://amcis2018.aisnet.org/ or by contacting the minitrack co-chairs.

Minitrack Co-Chairs:
Brenda Eschenbrenner
Department of Accounting and Finance
University of Nebraska at Kearney
eschenbrenbl at unk.edu<mailto:eschenbrenbl at unk.edu>

Xiaofeng Chen
Department of Decision Sciences
Western Washington University
Xiaofeng.Chen at wwu.edu<mailto:Xiaofeng.Chen at wwu.edu>