Eurograd message

Message posted on 09/01/2025

Call for paper

Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to submit abstracts for the section 12 “Coordination work and care practices in the use of telehealth in chronic care settings” at the ESA RN16 – Sociology of Health & Medicine Mid-Term Conference (Universidade de Évora, Portugal, 11-12 June 2025).

Session Description:

Session 12: Coordination work and care practices in the use of telehealth in chronic care settings

Session convenors: Barbara Sena, Ivan Galligani (University of Bergamo), Giampietro Gobo (University of Milan)

Telehealth or telemedicine is now globally recognised as a strategic approach to support healthcare systems to deal with the challenges of an ageing population, increasing chronic diseases, relative shortage of staff and steadily rising healthcare expenditure (WHO 2010; Hashiguchi 2020). It should: facilitate access to care services, particularly in remote or rural areas, reduce care delivery costs (bringing down travel requirements), shorten waiting times and filter improper access to hospital facilities, thus qualify itself as one of the pillars for strengthening territorial care and primary care. Nevertheless, the spread of telemedicine services is still extremely fragmented, in terms of geographical areas (even within the same Country), pathologies involved, and therapeutic applications; and in most cases these services are still ‘in the process of consolidation’. To explain this situation, the literature highlights a multiplicity of barriers and hindering factors situated at various operational levels (Carrasqueiro et al. 2017; Hashiguchi 2020; Saigi-Rubiò et al. 2022). One of the principal reasons for the delay of telehealth uptake lies in the poor recognition that the adoption of a new technological service requires 'artful integration' (Karasti & Syrjänen 2004) by the users, with the joint and coordinated activation of institutional, medical, social, organisational, individual and family processes and practices as well.

Theoretical and empirical papers are invited to unpack telehealth processes (within the broader field of e-health), focusing on their enactment in practice, drawing on, particularly, but not exclusively, on issues such as:

  • How behaviour and attitudes in medical and professional practice, patient-doctor relationships and inter-professional communication, change with the use of telemedicine, especially in primary and integrated care services.

  • How policies of telemedicine have favoured or, conversely, hindered the development of bottom-up telehealth services;

  • How health services change their practices and approach to care with the introduction of telemedicine services.

Deadline for abstract submission: 30 JANUARY 2025

Submission Process

Abstracts must be submitted in English and consist of:

a) Title

b) Keywords (maximum four)

b) Abstract (max. 300 words)

c) Author (s) name, affiliation, and email address

d) Session number and name

The abstracts should be sent to
rn16midtermconf@gmail.com ; and conference organizers: Ana Patrícia Hilário ( patriciahilario@gmail.com) and Catarina Delaunay ( catarinadelaunay@fcsh.unl.pt).

For further details, please see the Conference website:

https://www.rn16midtermconf2025.uevora.pt/page/

Best wishes,

Barbara Sena, Ivan Galligani, Giampietro Gobo


Prof. Barbara Sena (Ph.D.)

Associate Professor of General Sociology

Department of Letters, Philosophy, Communication

University of Bergamo

Via Pignolo, 123 - 24129 Bergamo (Italy)

Floor 3, Room 304

email: barbara.sena@ unibg.it

Recent publications

  • Sena B. (2024). The silent health social movement of traditional, complementary and integrative medicine in political contention with Western evidence-based biomedicine. Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, 4/2024, pp. 771-802, DOI: 10.1423/115301

  • Sena B. (con De Luca E.) (2024). La dimensione spirituale nelle pratiche di cura del fine vita. Limiti da superare e modelli da implementare, Salute e Società, 1/2024, pp. 83-100. DOI: 10.3280/SES2024-001006

  • Sena B. (2023). The Case Study in Social Research. History, Methods and Applications. London, Routledge.

https://www.routledge.com/The-Case-Study-in-Social-Research-History-Methods-a nd-Applications/Sena/p/book/9781032331164 EASST's Eurograd mailing list -- eurograd-easst.net@lists.easst.net Archive: https://lists.easst.net/hyperkitty/list/eurograd-easst.net@lists.easst.net/ Edit your delivery settings there using Account dropdown, Mailman settings. Website: https://easst.net/easst_eurograd/ Meet us on Mastodon: https://assemblag.es/@easst Or X: https://twitter.com/STSeasst

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