Welcome to WISH 2010

In recent years, the biomedical informatics community has begun to recognize human-computer interaction (HCI) and better understanding of social and human elements as important to a sound Health IT strategy. Meanwhile, research in human-computer interaction has found healthcare a rich and interesting domain of inquiry. Despite this progress, however, there exists a largely untapped potential to create deeper and more profound connections among the medical, informatics, human-computer interaction, medical sociology and anthropology communities.

The Workshop on Interactive Systems in Healthcare (WISH) will take place April 10th and 11th, 2010 in conjunction with the ACM CHI 2010 Conference on Human Factors and Computing Systems, at the CHI conference site, the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. This event is designed to foster conversation and bridge communities and will include specialists in biomedical informatics, nursing informatics, medical sociology, human-computer interaction, and related fields.

The goals of this workshop are consistent with those of the ACM SIGCHI and the Agency For Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). They are to:

1. Bring together groups of scientists from a variety of disciplines all focused on issues of human-computer interaction and healthcare;
2. Guide the work of new researchers by having world-renowned experts provide them advice;
3. Provide encouragement and support for engagement in research in interactive systems for healthcare;
4. Make it possible for promising new entrants to the field, many of whom are highly respected professionals in other fields but relatively new to HCI, to attend the CHI conference;
5. Illustrate the interrelationship and diversity of HCI research, in particular as it relates to healthcare technologies;
6. Make the interdisciplinary researchers’ experiences at both WISH and the CHI conference an enjoyable and rewarding experience, encouraging them to return and submit papers, panels, demonstrations, posters, etc. to the conference.

WISH will have an exciting program, including plenary speakers, invited panels, and the presentation of peer-reviewed research in the form of paper presentations and posters. This event is open to the public, even if you do not submit content for presentation.

We hope to see you at WISH!