Anamaria Malešević, an assistant at the Digital Healthcare Ethics Laboratory (Digit-HeaL), defended her doctoral dissertation titled Digital Health in Croatia: expectations, challenges and implementation at the Catholic University of Croatia on July 10. The dissertation was supervised by Assoc. Prof. Anto Čartolovni from the Catholic University of Croatia and Assoc. Prof. Ivan Balabanić from the Institute for Migration Research.

The dissertation systematically presents existing theoretical knowledge as well as international, European, and national strategies. It specifically examines digital health from the perspective of Croatian healthcare, describing the associated social and institutional factors. A mixed methodology was used in the research, combining qualitative and quantitative research and employing creative research techniques. The qualitative research included interviews with key stakeholders in the Croatian healthcare system (n=75), while the quantitative research involved a survey of medical students (n=775). The inclusion of various stakeholders, both current and future actors in the healthcare system, contributes to a detailed depiction of the issues related to the implementation of digital technologies in the Croatian healthcare sector.

The committee, consisting of Asst Prof. Ivana Brstilo Lovrić, Asst Prof. Josip Ježovita, and Prof. Krunoslav Nikodem, rated the dissertation summa cum laude.

Anamaria Malešević, a PhD fellow of the Croatian Science Foundation (HrZZ), enrolled in the doctoral program Sociology: Values, Identities, and Social Changes in Croatian Society in 2020/2021. This work was supported by Croatian Science Foundation (CSF), grant “(New) Ethical and Social Challenges of Digital Technologies in the Healthcare Domain”, grant number UIP-2019-04-3212.