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Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems

Editorial

This issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems contains a special issue about information systems in healthcare. The editors for the special issue are Pernille Bjørn from the IT University of Copenhagen, and Gunnar Ellingsen from the Arctic University of Norway.

Following the Scandinavian research tradition of engagement with the field and studying how information systems can be integrated into work practices, the special issue features action research, interventions and participatory design. The three papers chosen by the special issue editors focus on information infrastructures in child welfare, personal health records and action research on information infrastructures in healthcare.

In addition to the three papers in the special issue section, we have chosen to include a paper by Wendy Currie, entitled “Translating health IT policy into practice in the UK NHS” in this issue. Accepting editor of this paper was Margunn Aanestad, former editor-in-chief of the Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems. The paper is a longitudinal study spanning ten years of the National Care Record Service, a program providing 50 million English citizens with electronic health records. The roll out of electronic health records was delayed by issues of procurement strategies with IT suppliers, benefits realization, risk assessment and clinical engagement. The findings of the study suggests that cultural, social and economic criteria should be embedded into health IT policy-making.

We hope that you find this issue interesting. We look forward to receiving your best papers with a view to publishing them in the Scandinavian IS community’s own journal—the Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems.

Christina Keller, Jacob Nørbjerg, Netta Iivari and Bendik Bygstad