“I could just model the nurses the same way that I would model a printer in my office.”
After hearing this statement, I wrote in my notes “blog post for IFNA.”
On the one hand, I wasn’t surprised by the way in which people—whether that be nurses, health providers, patients, or families—were mostly left out of the presentations by the computer scientists, engineers, and business folk who made up the vast majority of conference attendees around me. On the other hand, I was taken aback by a seeming lack of awareness by some that the end points of the models and simulations, or the cogs in that process, were, in fact, people. What they wanted was behavior change. What they were thinking about and modeling were linear pathways that as a health sciences researcher I knew were not linear.
Not everyone presented their work this way. Some talked about the clinical outcomes that were desired, but focused on their own set of expertise, the digital and information technology aspects of digital health and health IT. I can’t blame them. I can’t talk about all of the ins and outs of the coding or technology behind some of the work I do.
And I don’t think that those who were not talking about people were devaluing them, despite the comments of a fellow attendee who said nurses did not know how to use technology. (I set him straight quite quickly.) But they were not always thinking about the people whose lives they were hoping to improve. And that’s why I wrote my note. Because I looked around the room and realized I was the only self-identified family health researcher there. I knew that the systems these scientists were designing would have an impact on the families with whom I work. And without my input or the input of my family health colleagues, those systems might not be a good as they could be.
Where was all of this happening? At the Hawaiian International Conference on Systems Science (HICSS), a conference that has been taking place for over 50 years in the Hawaiian Islands. The beauty of the setting cannot be ignored. But what I like about the conference is the growing presence of health- and health care-related tracks of presentations and workshops, as well as increased interest in digital media and society—how people use the technology at our fingertips.
When I attended the same conference two years ago, there was a presentation about IBM Watson and how it is being used in health care. This year there was a keynote on the spread of misinformation or false information and how it might have an impact on social determinants of health. I listened with interest as Jevin West described how misinterpretation of work to determine the identities of sexual minorities using facial recognition algorithms was not only implausible, but also potentially dangerous in the hands of governments in countries where being gay is illegal.
It was a great conference and I came away with a lot of new ideas. I also talked to folks about the work they were doing, how it dovetailed with my own or that of my colleagues, and how they might incorporate more family-focused approaches. It all reinforced the idea I had during that first session on the first day of the conference to write this blog post.
Family health researchers, practitioners, and educators need to be at the technology table. We need to bring our expertise into the conversation. No individual knows everything. And I’ve learned the importance, value, and necessity of interprofessional and interdisciplinary teams to support successful collaborations. The wealth of knowledge present among members of IFNA could have a profound influence on the work of those at HICSS and other health IT conferences. And we could learn so much from them. My hope is that the next time I find myself at HICSS or a similar conference, that I will not be the only family health scholar in the room.
Joel G. Anderson, PhD, CHTP, FGSA, is an Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee College of Nursing and a member of the IFNA Communications Committee. His research examines family quality of life in dementia and issues related to caregiving, including the use of social media as part of the family caregiving experience and the unique needs of the LGBTQ+ caregiver population. You can follow him on Twitter at @JoelAndersonPhD or read his blog.
