A Connectivity Framework for Social Information Systems Design in Healthcare

Social information systems (SISs) will play a key role in healthcare systems' transformation into collaborative patient-centered systems that support care delivery across the entire continuum of care. SISs enable the development of collaborative networks andfacilitate relationships to integrate people and processes across time and space. However, we believe that a "connectivity" issue, which refers to the scope and extent of system requirements for a SIS, is a significant challenge of SIS design. This paper's contribution is the development of the Social Information System Connectivity Framework for supporting SIS design in healthcare. The framework has three parts. First, it defines the structure of a SIS as a set of social triads. Second, it identifies six dimensions that represent the behaviour of a SIS. Third, it proposes the Social Information System Connectivity Factor as our approximation of the extent of connectivity and degree of complexity in a SIS.