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The competition in the academe has always been tough, but today, the academe seems to be more like an industry than an academic community as academics are evaluated through quantified and economic means.

This article leans on Heidegger’s thoughts on the essence of technology and his ontological view on being to show the dangers that lie in this quantification of researchers and research.

Despite the benefits that information systems (ISs) offer to people and research, it seems that technology has made it possible to objectify researchers and research. This has a negative impact on the academe and should thus be looked into especially by the IS field, which should note the problems that exist in its core. This phenomenon of quantified academics is clearly visible at academic quantification sites, where academics are evaluated using metrics that count their output. It seems that the essence of technology has disturbed the way research is valued by emphasising its quantifiable aspects. The study claims that it is important to look for other ways to evaluate researchers rather than trying to maximise research production, which has led to the flooding of articles that few have the time or interest to read.

This paper offers new insights into the current phenomenon of quantification of academics and underlines the need for critical changes if in order to achieve the academic culture that is desirable for future academics.

Service alignment between health service provider and patient is changing. Instead of placing responsibilities into the hands of a provider, new forms of co-operation are emerging in which patients are regarded as a resource and a partner. In order to see this vision come to life, mechanisms that: first, support patient’s health decision making; and second, integrate matters of health into a wider ensemble that is health space; the overarching state of health-related affairs, are needed. In the following, these kinds of mechanisms are investigated and their applicability is discussed in relation to a national project. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The work is exploratory and conceptual, focussing more on people than on technology. In the work, findings related to a concept of a health navigator; an artefact of personal health decision support, are assembled into a framework that bases on key sociological theories. The empirical elements focus on observations made on applicability of the concept, and the underlying framework of citizen-centric electronic health services.

The authors argue that the discussed concept, when applied to personal health decision making according to the underlying framework, has a potential to change health service provisioning. In addition to stimulating new kind of co-operation between the health service provider and the citizen, the concept gives form to, somewhat idealized, notions of patient choice and empowerment.

The work described here is exploratory and forward-looking. Even though the concept and the framework are tested to a degree in a national project, more practice-oriented work is needed in terms of real-world applicability. It follows from this that the work is a conceptual elaboration on the future of personal health decision making.

The findings, including the discussed challenges and needs, stem from real-world observations; from the needs of citizens. As such, they indicate a direction into which the development of personal health records and health decision support aids should go.

Health care has come to a turning point. Particularly due to aging societies and economic pressure placed on health care system, health is rapidly becoming one's own responsibility. This fundamental paradigm shift does not only affect the way health care services that will be provided in the near future but it also places enormous health information management demands on the laypeople. The purpose of this paper is to look into this emerging phenomenon, its current challenges and available solutions.

In order to identify different kinds of solutions used for personal health information management (PHIM) and related challenges, a bibliographical review is conducted using five online databases. The review focuses on articles that emphasize personal nature of the health information management. The bibliographical review is also extended to some of the articles cited in the original review. To support discoveries from the bibliographical review, the results are compared to free electronic personal health records of different types.

The paper identifies some of the most current challenges in the field of PHIM and provides an outline for overcoming them. Proposed guidelines include a concept of citizen pathways (CPs) that can be used for complementing the currently available solutions from a citizen‐centric perspective.

The paper points out near‐future development directions for the PHIM solutions in the form of identified and relevant challenges and characterized CPs. However, the forward‐looking conclusions are based on a bibliographical review and analysis of existing systems, and therefore their functionality and applicability are not tested in practice.

The findings of this paper can be used in shaping PHIM solutions of the near future. The described challenges can also be used to identify potential problems of the internet and new media on a larger scale in the context of health and medical informatics.