Paper short abstract:

The implementation of a mHealth platform to enable self-management of HIV is investigated across five clinical sites. We focus on new modes of control, triggered by digital care innovation, and their impact on identities and relationships between different actors in the health field.

Paper long abstract:

Social theorists recognise that the introduction of the computer and Internet technologies as new media of communication will bring about fundamental changes within the societal structure and culture. Within the healthcare domain, a new branch of STS research is investigating the various ways in which digital technologies are employed and how they affect experiences of health and illness and practices of self-care and treatment.

Contributing to this field of research, this study comparatively investigates the development and implementation of a mobile health (mHealth) platform to enable self-management of HIV in patients in five clinical sites across the European Union (UK, Belgium, Croatia, Spain, and Portugal). The platform will provide users with web based and mobile device applications which interface securely with relevant medical data and facilitate remote access to key healthcare providers. In the first study phase, presented here, twenty group discussions and twenty individual interviews with patients and clinicians are carried out to assess the potential of the mHealth platform for HIV self-management and treatment and to investigate the concerns and challenges that will affect the implementation and adoption of the platform in everyday practices and organisational routines.

Digital care innovations facilitate the tracking and networking of healthcare practices and medical data. By an in-depth analysis of the empirical data this presentation raises the question whether new modes of control can be identified and how these impact identities and relationships between different actors.