Audrey Grace

Dr. Grace is a part-time lecturer and researcher with the Cork University Business School. Her current research focuses on design led service innovation with an emphasis on how information systems (IS) can be leveraged in user-centric design and delivery of services.

Her research is underpinned by the socio-technical perspective of organisational behaviour and service user behaviour; and she has a particular interest in how 'information technology tools' can be combined with 'psychological tools' to achieve better outcomes.

Her research also includes the employment of IS which help enable individuals to manage their own wellness and to better collaborate with healthcare professionals on the management of their healthcare.

In addition, Dr. Grace work has spanned digital transformation, service co-production, e-government and the employment of learning management systems for the maximization of human capital within organisations.

eHealth Research: Publicly provided healthcare systems, worldwide, are coming under increasing pressures because of aging populations, increased prevalence of chronic disease and spiralling healthcare costs. It is widely recognized that such pressures can be somewhat alleviated by focusing on community-based healthcare and empowering people to manage their own wellness. Information Systems can clearly play a key part in this empowerment and as such represents a particularly fruitful area of research.

Co-Production Research: Service co-production between a service professional and an individual client involves collaborative decision making between these two parties which necessitates high levels of interaction and information sharing between them. This type of collaborative interaction and the role of Information Systems in such settings represents an under-researched area and holds much promise in reducing costs and finding new ways to address the increasingly complex needs of customers/consumers.

E-Government Research: Governments, worldwide, are increasingly recognising the advantages of interacting with their citizens by electronic means and as a result, this area is receiving growing attention both from research and practice. Indeed, the Irish Government has announced plans to implement a design led approach across all public services in Ireland with the aim of ensuring that all services including digital services keep service users at the centre of decision making. Empirical research on how such an approach can best be supported by Information Systems is lacking and needs attention.