Patients's use of digital media to connect with healthcare

Digital media are rapidly changing citizens’ engagement with healthcare. No longer constrained by geography and national borders, citizens are able to use the internet and social media on a 24/7 basis to establish links with remote others, including providers, to manage their own health, to gain access to treatments unavailable to them where they live, and to shape research priorities. Digital media also offer new opportunities for providers of healthcare, by enabling them to deliver their services remotely (tele-health), and to advertise treatments and care directly to consumers via the internet (e.g. medical tourism). This workshop will bring together established and emerging scholars in ethics, sociology, anthropology, biomedicine and law, to explore the diverse socio-ethical and regulatory implications of citizens’ growing use of digital media to engage with healthcare and to propose new approaches to responding to this digitalization.