In times of an ageing society and a rural exodus of primary care physicians, healthcare systems are facing major challenges. To maintain comprehensive care and an equitable access to healthcare services, today's technological advancements represent a promising measure. Technologies empower patients by providing innovative tools such as sensors and applications for self-measurement, leading to selfinitiated interventions, while supporting physicians in handling rising demands through telemedicine and spatially detached solutions. These enhanced treatments come with patient and physician-sided challenges such as incorrect digital information provided to the patient, negatively affecting treatment quality and leading to high issue resolving efforts. In order to investigate the perspectives of rural physicians on treatment digitalization and effects of patient empowerment, we conducted a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. Our findings show that patient activation, impacts on treatment process, patient differentiation, and patient-physicianinteraction are relevant factors in the physicians' valuation and willingness to use health technologies.

In the course of healthcare digitization, the roles of therapists and patients are likely to change. To shape a theoretical based process of technological transformation, a phenomenological perspective on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is introduced. Therefore, this paper illustrates the benefit of a holistic view on patients and therapists to describe and explain phenomena concerning Human Technology Interaction (HTI). The differentiation between a measurable objective body and a habitual subjective body helps to evaluate and anticipate constituting factors of accepting telemedicine systems. Taking into account findings from a secondary analysis of semi-structured interviews we conducted with primary care physicians, we develop a phenomenological framework for HTI in healthcare. Our aim is to structure future research concerning design implications for ICT and the implementation of telemedicine systems in clinical and primary care.

The digitization of health care promises an improvement of medical care through the adoption of virtual reality (VR) related technologies. Although most undergoing mechanisms of clinical effectiveness are yet not defined theoretically, research approaches have already taken place in several empirical settings. To structure current and upcoming scientific work in this field, we conducted a literature review with regard to theoretical implications of both IS-related and healthcare-related research. We found several theoretical bases to build upon in the field of psychology, but expressed a need for enrichment of theoretical foundations in the field of IS research. We therefore plead for a theoretical foundation enriched by synergetic concepts of clinically effective VR related technologies. Finally, we conclude that VR related technologies appear as a promising approach worth further theoretical and empirical research in order to improve medical care.

Virtual reality (VR) technologies such as head-mounted displays are gaining increasing attention since the Oculus Rift development kit entered the market in 2016. VR is assumed to offer great potential for different purposes such as entertainment, gaming, education, or healthcare. VR provides an enclosed virtual environment in which users can become immersed, can move and look freely at 360degree in any direction, and they can interact, manipulate, or create virtual objects with their entire body. With regard to these properties and the characteristic of immersion, we examine how immersion can be enhanced by the theoretical constructs of agency and body ownership in a VR space. Therefore, we investigate the perception of agency and the sense of body ownership with 69 participants in a laboratory study with a self-developed VR environment. We found a positive significant effect of agency but no effect of body ownership on immersion.

Obesity is the most widespread disease worldwide. There are numerous therapeutic approaches and possible solutions, but the problem has not diminished yet. By using digital technologies, we suggest to apply the concept of the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA) and Cognitive Absorption (CA) to a virtual reality (VR) context. The HAPA is used in physiology and psychology to examine phenomena with regard to nutrition and movements. In order to strengthen the motivational level of people with obesity, our idea is to achieve a better nutrition behavior through a higher level of immersion and physical activities in VR. To investigate this issue, we propose an integrated theoretical model and an experimental study with volunteers. The experimental study combines psychological elements (HAPA) with digital technologies (VR) in order to establish a temporally and spatially independent mobile solution for increased awareness and understanding of consuming unhealthy food and the associated need for exercising.