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In recent years, there has been steady increase in the interest shown in both big data analytics and the use of information technology (IT) solutions to improve healthcare services. Despite the growing interest, there are limited materials, to addressing the needs and challenges posed by the activities and processes including the use of big data. From IT solutions'perspectives, this book aims to advance the deployment and use of big data analytics to increase patients'big data usefulness and improve healthcare service delivery.The book provides significant insights and useful guide on how to access and manage big data, in improving healthcare service delivery. The book contributes a fresh perspective, which primarily comes from the complementary use of analytics approach with actor-network theory (ANT), and other techniques, in advancing healthcare service delivery. Accessing and managing healthcare big data have always been a challenging exercise. Due to the sensitivity of the health sector, the focus on patients'big data is from either technical or social perspective. Thus, the book employs sociotechnical theories, ANT and structuration theory (ST) as lenses to examine and explain the factors that enable and constrain the use of patients'big data for health services. By doing so, the book brings a different dimension and advance health service delivery.Providing a timely and important contribution to this critical area, this book is a valuable, international resource for academics, postgraduate students and researchers in the areas of IT, big data analytics, data management and health informatics.

This book sets out to provide postgraduate researchers with guidance on selecting and applying sociotechnical theories to the study of information systems, including how they can be combined to complement each other. Until now it has been difficult to source advice on the application of these theories, and there has been no single book that combines multiple theories as this does.Examining the impacts of technological developments and seeking to understand how humans interact with computers and systems is a dynamic field but can often confuse researchers with the overwhelming number of social theories that are utilised to derive insights. Instead, the author in this book breaks down some of the most popular theories used to underpin information system research, such as activity theory (AT), actor-network theory (ANT), contingency theory (CT), diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory, structuration theory (ST), and the technology acceptance model (TAM). By doing so, this book serves to enable a simpler, faster selection of appropriate theories, and a more effective and productive application that leads to richer, more rigorous research outcomes.Written for postgraduates, researchers, and academics in the fields of information technology and information systems, this book provides a valuable resource of sociotechnical research methodologies that will enable and enhance future studies.