Healthcare Social Networks Research Articles

A Provably-Secure Cross-Domain Handshake Scheme with Symptoms-Matching for Mobile Healthcare Social Network

With rapid developments of sensor, wireless and mobile communication technologies, Mobile Healthcare Social Networks (MHSNs) have emerged as a popular means of communication in healthcare services. Within MHSNs, patients can use their mobile devices to securely share their experiences, broaden their understanding of the illness or symptoms, form a supportive network, and transmit information (e.g., state of health and new symptoms) between users and other stake holders (e.g., medical center). Despite the benefits afforded by MHSNs, there are underlying security and privacy issues (e.g., due to the transmission of messages via a wireless channel). The handshake scheme is an important cryptographic mechanism, which can provide secure communication in MHSNs (e.g., anonymity and mutual authentication between users, such as patients). In this paper, we present a new framework for the handshake scheme in MHSNs, which is based on hierarchical identity-based cryptography. We then construct an efficient Cross-Domain HandShake (CDHS) scheme that allows symptoms-matching within MHSNs. For example, using the proposed CDHS scheme, two patients registered with different healthcare centers can achieve mutual authentication and generate a session key for future secure communications. We then prove the security of the scheme, and a comparative summary demonstrates that the proposed CDHS scheme requires fewer computation and lower communication costs. We also implement the proposed CDHS scheme and three related schemes in a proof of concept Android app to demonstrate utility of the scheme. Findings from the evaluations demonstrate that the proposed CDHS scheme achieves a reduction of 18.14 and 5.41 percent in computation cost and communication cost, in comparison to three other related handshake schemes.

Healthcare Social Networks for Patients with Cardiovascular Diseases and Recommendation Systems

Healthcare Social Networks for Patients with Cardiovascular Diseases and Recommendation Systems

EPPS: Efficient and Privacy-Preserving Personal Health Information Sharing in Mobile Healthcare Social Networks.

Mobile healthcare social networks (MHSNs) have emerged as a promising next-generation healthcare system, which will significantly improve the quality of life. However, there are many security and privacy concerns before personal health information (PHI) is shared with other parities. To ensure patients’ full control over their PHI, we propose a fine-grained and scalable data access control scheme based on attribute-based encryption (ABE). Besides, policies themselves for PHI sharing may be sensitive and may reveal information about underlying PHI or about data owners or recipients. In our scheme, we let each attribute contain an attribute name and its value and adopt the Bloom filter to efficiently check attributes before decryption. Thus, the data privacy and policy privacy can be preserved in our proposed scheme. Moreover, considering the fact that the computational cost grows with the complexity of the access policy and the limitation of the resource and energy in a smart phone, we outsource ABE decryption to the cloud while preventing the cloud from learning anything about the content and access policy. The security and performance analysis is carried out to demonstrate that our proposed scheme can achieve fine-grained access policies for PHI sharing in MHSNs.

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As health information is valuable, thieves will continue to steal it. Likewise, insufficiently trained employees at organizations or even individuals that pay less attention to creating a privacy-aware culture will suffer data losses when unprotected devices are lost, stolen or sniffed. In this work, sensors are exploited to collect and generate data to be processed, clustered and shared via locally developed application to improve social networking in context of privacy preserving healthcare. The solution is developed for Android operating system. It provides the user with a set of network related social services. In addition to (i) showing specific places (ii) sharing the user location; (iii) showing nearby friends; (iv) getting and sharing weather temperature, it clusters nearby friends; calculates and shares distance moved, calories burned and active time; calculates tracking and shares the user heart rate,. Data privacy model is presented using data session levels and user roles to ensure privacy within healthcare social network.

Hepatitis-related stigma in chronic patients: A qualitative study

BackgroundHepatitis is one of health problems throughout the world. It has numerous consequences on patients' life. Stigma, depression, social marginalization and financial problems are some of the challenges in these patients. AimThe purpose of this qualitative study was to examine hepatitis-related stigma and discrimination in patients living with chronic hepatitis in Iranian society. MethodsThis present study was designed as a qualitative method, and this article shows up the results of a qualitative research study undertaken with patients living with hepatitis in Iran. The study uses a content analysis method. A purposive sample of 18 patients was chosen. Data were collected through a semi-structured interview and field note that the researchers will take during participants' observation. Data analysis process was performed on the texts which were generated from verbatim transcripts of the participants interviews. ResultsParticipants were between 18 and 61years old. The main theme, Stigma, emerged from three themes during the process data analysis in this study. These themes were including fear to lose of family and social support, fear to present in public and fear of transmission. ConclusionsThis research indicates that stigma presents major challenges not only for patients living with chronic hepatitis but also for nurses, other healthcare practitioners, family and social networks, institutions and society. The researcher suggests that interventions to reduce or eliminate stigma should require individual, structural, cultural thought, society and systemic changes.

A Social Network Model with Privacy Preserving and Reliability Assurance and its Applications in Health Care

Social media has become a platform to provide big data services. In healthcare applications, online E-health platforms have enabled patients to obtain useful references on the Internet, as well as to share information and exchange experiences among people with similar diseases. Such social networks also enable researchers and marketers to conduct studies or advocates on targeted groups of patients. However, how to protect user privacy while assure user and data reliability at the same time remains a challenge in practice. This article tackles the problem by exploring trust-engagement mechanism and developing a dynamic multi-trust model integrating multilevel access control, credible anonymity, and mutual rating mechanism for a multi-purpose healthcare social network. The social network model we presented in this study mainly focuses on the purpose of big data privacy preserving, and user and data reliability assurance. We discuss the mechanism of the model and present practical implementation designs on achieving the goals. We also apply the model in the healthcare social network to elaborate how electronic health records (EHRs) and personal health records (PHRs) can work together to support a social health record (SHR) network which enables privacy preserving and user and data reliability.

Healthcare Social Networks for Patients with Cardiovascular Diseases and Recommendation Systems

Healthcare Social Networks for Patients with Cardiovascular Diseases and Recommendation Systems

Data Protection in Healthcare Social Networks

Healthcare social networking sites (HSNSs) provide users with tools and services to easily establish contact with each other around shared problems and utilize the wisdom of crowds to attack disease. The increasing popularity of HSNSs has led to concern over the privacy of health-related data published through these Web sites. The open philosophy of contemporary HSNSs can result in unauthorized use and disclosure of sensitive personal health data. Prior research about how best to protect such data has focused on specific technologies such as privacy settings and data anonymization. However, the fundamental challenge to data protection in HSNSs is more system-related than technical. A set of system requirements with a special emphasis on preventing privacy violations by service providers can help tackle these privacy and security problems.

Characterizing development patterns of health-care social networks

The growing amount of data in health-care social media requires innovative new analysis methods, which are elementary to exploration of relationship dynamics, in a bid to understand the new roles social media plays in health care. In this work, we use network analysis to explore the temporal nature of two large diabetes social networks, with a view to enhancing our knowledge of the development of community structures and cohesion factors. We compare our findings with analysis of two other nonhealth-care social networks. Current results reveal how diabetes online communities are very dynamic, suggesting diabetes patients are usually actively engaged for periods of less than a year, typically immediately following diagnosis. Additionally, we observe shrinking of both diameter and density, as well as disassortative mixing. The presented empirical study informs future online intervention strategies for promoting health behavior and lifestyle changes among people with diabetes.

Navigating multiple options and social relationships in plural health systems: a qualitative study exploring healthcare seeking for sick children in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone has emerged from civil war but remains in the lowest tier of the human development index. While significant health reforms, such as the removal of user fees, aim to increase access to services, little is known about how families navigate a plural health system in seeking health care for sick children. This research aims to build on recent care-seeking literature that emphasizes a shift from static supply-and-demand paradigms towards more nuanced understandings, which account for the role of household agency and social support in navigating a landscape of options. A rapid ethnographic assessment was conducted in villages near and far from facilities across four districts: Kambia, Kailahun, Pujehun and Tonkolili. In total, 36 focus group discussions and 64 in-depth interviews were completed in 12 villages. Structured observation in each village detailed sources of health care. When a child becomes sick, households work within their geographic, social and financial context to seek care from sources including home treatment, herbalists, religious healers, drug peddlers and facility-based providers. Pathways vary, but respondents living closer to facilities emphasized facility care compared with those living further away, who take multi-pronged approaches. Beyond factors linked to the location and type of healthcare provision, social networks and collaboration within and across families determine how best to care for a sick child and can contribute to (or hinder) the mobilization of resources necessary to access care. Husbands play a particularly critical role in mobilizing funds and facilitating transport to facilities. Caregivers in Sierra Leone have endured in the absence of adequate health care for decades: their resourcefulness in devising multiple strategies for care must be recognized and integrated into the service delivery reforms that are making health care increasingly available.

“Condoms make you lose both the child and pleasure”: perceptions on family planning and contraceptives in Malawi

A qualitative study comprising 91 focus group discussions (FGDs) of adult married men and women and 21 key informant interviews (KIIs) was conducted in Malawi in 2008. The purpose of the study was to explore the knowledge, perceptions and practices towards contraceptives and family planning. Data were analyzed using content analysis. The perceived effectiveness, physical health gains and socio-economic benefits of contraceptives and/or family planning were well recognized by the study participants. Covert use of contraceptives by women was despised by both men and women and considered a punishable offence. Women reported men as less likely to provide support for contraceptive use. A woman’s own relatives were reported to be more likely to support contraceptive use, while her in-laws and friends identified as not as supportive. Concerns regarding adverse health effects of hormonal contraceptive use included vaginal bleeding and delayed return to fertility. Unwanted social or personal consequences were that vaginal bleeding or spotting as a consequence of hormonal contraceptive use limited women’s availability to their male partners for sex, that a woman who was using contraceptives was not fulfilling her childbearing responsibilities and that contraceptive use promoted extramarital sex as there was no more fear of pregnancy. Having a wide range of contraceptives in health facilities or community sources, a supportive healthcare and supportive social network could improve contraceptive uptake.

Swedish citizens' opinions on decision support in primary healthcare

Choice reform in public healthcare includes the expectation that citizens will choose a healthcare provider. This paper investigates the informational support they need in order to choose a primary healthcare provider. The study is based on an electronic survey (n = 990) in Sweden. The Callon and Muniesa model is used as the paper's theoretical framework. This model, which describes the sequential phases of isolating alternatives, examining alternatives and ranking and making choices, emphasises that technological devices support consumer choice. The paper concludes that public healthcare web portals and information leaflets are more popular platforms than private healthcare web portals and social networks. The data citizens find most useful for examining alternatives are waiting times, doctors' competences and reception. The paper makes suggestions for the design of technological devices citizens can use to choose healthcare providers. The theoretical framework shows the technological and political character of information used to support choice.

Tapping the Wisdom of Crowd Phenomenon in Healthcare Social Networks

Online social networks are increasing in popularity. Among teens, they are fast becoming synonymous with being online, i.e., using the Internet (Lenhart et al., 2011). As online social networks became widespread, it is found that people are using it for various purposes including work, leisure, entertainment, as well as healthcare. In this paper, the authors share their viewpoint and insights on the use of online social networks for healthcare related purposes which are sometimes also referred to as Health 2.0, or as Health Social Networks (HSNs). The authors examine the potential of HSNs in empowering patients and health information seekers towards wellbeing and healthy living. They also discuss the various potential uses of HSNs by healthcare providers and healthcare organizations. A three-dimensional framework is developed by analyzing 37 best-known commercial HSN sites to help categorize HSNs that can aide in their design process. More importantly, we provide an in-depth discussion on the future role of social networks within Healthcare.

Network Dynamics: How Can We Find Patients Like Us?

Social networks have been shown to affect health. Because online social networking makes it easier for individuals to interact with experientially similar others in regard to health issues and to exchange social support, there has been an increasing effort to understand how networks function. Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to how these networks are formed. In this paper, we examine the driving forces behind patients’ social network formation and evolution. We argue that patients’ health-related traits influence their social connections and that the patients’ network layout is shaped by their cognitive capabilities and their network embeddedness. By studying longitudinal data from 1,322 individuals and their communication ties in an online healthcare social network, we find that firsthand disease experience, which provides knowledge of the disease, increases the probability that patients will find experientially similar others and establish communication ties. Patients’ cognitive abilities, including the information load that they can process and the range of social ties that they can manage, however, limit their network growth. In addition, we find that patients’ efforts to reach out for additional social resources are associated with their embeddedness in the network and the cost of maintaining connections. Practical implications of our findings are discussed.

Improving the Implementation of Evidence-Based Practice and Information Systems in Healthcare

In healthcare, evidence-based practice (EBP) integrates clinical expertise with the best available external evidence from systematic research. Yet even with the aid of technology, implementation of EBP in many settings remains a challenge due in part to the complexity of the healthcare system and the lack of a strong theoretical and analytical foundation to guide implementation efforts. This paper combines research from the fields of healthcare implementation science and social networks to present a theoretically based, integrated framework for the study of EBP implementation. This study explores the application of the framework to a complex healthcare collaborative, the MRSA infection control project, a project intended to foster the implementation of EBP to reduce the spread of MRSA infections. The authors consider how the framework can also be used to inform future research into EBP-related information system implementations and innovations.

PEC: A privacy-preserving emergency call scheme for mobile healthcare social networks

In this paper, we propose a privacy-preserving emergency call scheme, called PEC, enabling patients in life-threatening emergencies to fast and accurately transmit emergency data to the nearby helpers via mobile healthcare social networks (MHSNs). Once an emergency happens, the personal digital assistant (PDA) of the patient runs the PEC to collect the emergency data including emergency location, patient health record, as well as patient physiological condition. The PEC then generates an emergency call with the emergency data inside and epidemically disseminates it to every user in the patient's neighborhood. If a physician happens to be nearby, the PEC ensures the time used to notify the physician of the emergency is the shortest. We show via theoretical analysis that the PEC is able to provide fine-grained access control on the emergency data, where the access policy is set by patients themselves. More- over, the PEC can withstand multiple types of attacks, such as identity theft attack, forgery attack, and collusion attack. We also de- vise an effective revocation mechanism to make the revocable PEC (rPEC) resistant to inside attacks. In addition, we demonstrate via simulation that the PEC can significantly reduce the response time of emergency care in MHSNs.

Virtual Communities for Diabetes Chronic Disease Healthcare

Diabetes is classified as the world's fastest-growing chronic illness that affects millions of people. It is a very serious disease, but the bright side is that it is treatable and can be managed. Proper education in this view is necessary to achieve essential control and prevent the aggregation of this chronic sickness. We have developed a healthcare social network that provides methods for distance learning; opportunities for creation of virtual self-help groups where patients can get information and establish interactions among each other in order to exchange important healthcare-related information; discussion forums; patient-to-healthcare specialist communication. The mission of our virtual community is to increase the independence of people with diabetes, self-management, empower them to take care of themselves, make their everyday activities easier, enrich their medical knowledge, and improve their health condition, make them more productive, and improve their communication with other patients with similar diagnoses. The ultimate goal is to enhance the quality of their life.

Social Networks as Embedded Complex Adaptive Systems

As systems evolve over time, their natural tendency is to become increasingly more complex. Studies in the field of complex systems have generated new perspectives on management in social organizations such as hospitals. Much of this research appears as a natural extension of the cross-disciplinary field of systems theory. This is the 15th in a series of articles applying complex systems science to the traditional management concepts of planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, and controlling. In this article, the authors discuss healthcare social networks as a hierarchy of embedded complex adaptive systems. The authors further examine the use of social network analysis tools as a means to understand complex communication patterns and reduce medical errors.