Exploring mHealth Participation for Emergency Response Communities

Authors

  • David G. Schwartz Information Systems Department Graduate School of Business Administration Bar-Ilan University http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2125-2069
  • Abdelouahab Bellou Harvard Medical School Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center Boston, MA
  • Luis Garcia-Castrillo Emergency Dept. Servicio Cantabro de Salud Hospital Universitario Marques de Valdecilla Cantabria
  • Antonella Muraro Food Allergy Referral Centre Veneto Region Padua General University Hospital Padua
  • Nikolaos Papadopoulos Center for Pediatrics and Child Health Institute of Human Development The University of Manchester Manchester, United Kingdom and Department of Allergy University of Athens Athens, Greece

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3127/ajis.v21i0.1378

Keywords:

mHealth, participation, smartphones, chronic disease, emergency medical response, social networking, anaphylaxis, EMS, shared identity, diffused responsibility

Abstract

We explore the challenges of participation by members of emergency response communities who share a similar condition and treatment, and are called upon to participate in emergency events experienced by fellow members. Smartphones and location-based social networking technologies present an opportunity to re-engineer certain aspects of emergency medical response. Life-saving prescription medication extended in an emergency by one individual to another occurs on a micro level, anecdotally documented. We illustrate the issues and our approach through the example of an app to support patients prone to anaphylaxis and prescribed to carry epinephrine auto-injectors. We address unique participation challenges in an mHealth environment in which interventions are primarily short-term interactions which require clear and precise decision-making and constant tracking of potential participants in responding to an emergency medical event. The conflicting effects of diffused responsibility and shared identity are identified as key factors in modeling participation.

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Published

2017-03-08

How to Cite

Schwartz, D. G., Bellou, A., Garcia-Castrillo, L., Muraro, A., & Papadopoulos, N. (2017). Exploring mHealth Participation for Emergency Response Communities. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 21. https://doi.org/10.3127/ajis.v21i0.1378

Issue

Vol. 21 (2017)

Section

Research on Health Information Systems

License

AJIS publishes open-access articles distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Non-Commercial and Attribution License which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and AJIS are credited. All other rights including granting permissions beyond those in the above license remain the property of the author(s).