"Biomedical Knowledge Management: Infrastructures and Processes for E-Health Systems"

CALL FOR CHAPTERS

Submission Deadline: September 15, 2007

A book edited by

Wayne Pease, University of Southern Queensland , Australia ,

Prof. Malcolm Cooper, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University , Japan , and Assoc. Professor Raj Gururajan, University of Southern Queensland , Australia .

Introduction

E-Health describes the application of information and communications technologies (ICT) across the whole range of functions that affect the health sector, from the doctor to the hospital manager, via nurses, data processing specialists, social security administrators and - of course - the patients. E-Health is one of the most rapidly growing areas in health today. However, limited systematic research has been carried out to inform e-Health policy and practice. The internet and other developments in e-Health are playing increasing roles in consumer health behaviour, and in the delivery of health services.

Overall objectives and mission of the book

Key challenges facing healthcare providers today include an aging population, demanding patients, medical errors, lack of access to systematic knowledge bases including measuring health outcomes, and rising costs of health care. These challenges will be addressed by the contents of this book. Our book is an in-depth examination of e-Health from a theoretical as well as a practical viewpoint, in an edited paper format (8000-10000 words). The objective of the edited book is to look at the current state of play in terms of e-Health research and development of innovative ICT systems and services that process, integrate and use all relevant biomedical information for improving health knowledge. An examination of e-Health will also shed light on the rise of the Asia Pacific region as a prominent growth area in the use of ICT in the delivery of health services. The book will be written with a higher level academic readership in mind, while also being targeted at those who in some way or another are engaged in the study of ICT solutions to industrial and social problems with respect to health care delivery in the developing world.

Recommended topics include, but are not limited to the following :

• General overview of eHealth in the 21st Century
• General overview of the ICT environment for eHealth
• Role of ICT as an enabler for healthcare outcomes
• Improving the quality of healthcare services using ICT technologies
• Streamlining multi-disciplinary and multi-level care management
• Improving clinical and administrative efficiency including clinical governance
• Developing knowledge bases for health care systems
• Meeting training needs for health professionals using ICT technologies
• Maintaining high standards of patient privacy and information security
• User friendliness and community involvement in eHealth systems and services.
• Legal, ethical and regulatory issues
• Education issues - e-health involves new forms of patient-physician interaction
• New relationships between health professionals and their patients – patient centric
• Electronic medical records (EMR) and integrated health platforms
• Extending the scope of health care beyond its conventional boundaries
• New Frontiers for ICT and health care management
• Empowerment of consumers and patients
• Equity and e-health  - to make health care more equitable is one of the promises of e-health, but at the same time there is a considerable threat that e-health may deepen the gap between the "haves" and "have-nots" – the digital divide
• Development and implementation of electronic healthcare information standards for data exchange for use in health informatics e.g. HIPPA, HL7 and DICOM
• Role of electronic healthcare standards in health informatics  
• Data standards for the distribution of meaningful data in health informatics e.g. controlled medical vocabularies (CMVs) such as the Standardized Nomenclature of Medicine, Clinical Terms (SNOMED-CT)
• Decision support systems in healthcare, including clinical decision support systems

Submission Procedure:

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before  September 15, 2007 , a 2-5 page manuscript proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of the proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by  October 15, 2007 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter organizational guidelines. Full chapters (8000-10000 words) are expected to be submitted by  January 31, 2008 . All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. The book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), www.igi-pub.com , and has been selected for inclusion in IGI Global's most prestigious imprint, Information Science Reference – ISR, as one of its Handbooks of Research .  This highly-acclaimed line of publications includes only the most advanced, comprehensive research titles published by ISR.

Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) or by mail to:

Wayne Pease
Associate Dean ( Fraser Coast )
Faculty of Business
Fraser Coast Campus
University of Southern Queensland
PO BOX 910 
Hervey Bay , Queensland
Australia 4655
Tel.: +61 (0)7 41206123   • Fax: +61 (0)7 41206168
E-mail:  pease@usq.edu.au