Abstract

Along with the studies on welfare and healthcare policies, various branches of sociology have addressed digital health - health sociology, organizational sociology, and the sociology of professions - but most of the time the different strands of research have not been speaking to each other. Scholars interested in welfare systems don't always pay enough attention to technological challenges, and the concurrent changes in the healthcare professions, while scholars focusing on the latter don't always consider the changes that are taking place in the institutional, and organizational context or in care relations. This introductory note addresses the above issues, by fully acknowledging that we are in a transition phase: whereas what happened during the years of the Taylorist-Welfarist society is largely well-known, we can provide only some preliminary insights into the transformations that are currently underway at the macro, meso, and micro level, and try to outline future scenarios for research.