Healthcare organizations are hybrid entities that integrate a variety of goals, activities, institutions, and institutional logics, as well as multiple value-creation mechanisms (Grossi et al., 2022). This complexity implies that management tools and practices must address the divergent values and interpretations of mission arising from the diverse backgrounds and roles of the professionals involved (Hyndman & McConville, 2018). These factors make healthcare organizations complex environments for understanding, valuing, and demonstrating performance.
In recent years, the topics of digitalization and digital transformation (DT) have been increasingly studied within the healthcare sector. Digitalization refers to the process of improving an organization by making significant changes to its systems through the integration of information, computing, communication, and connectivity technologies (Kraus et al., 2021). Together with DT, which is defined as the “use of technology to radically improve an organization’s performance” (Westerman et al., 2011), these processes have enabled healthcare organizations to create new opportunities in both care delivery (Mettler & Pinto, 2018) and organizational management (Cerchione et al., 2023; Tortorella et al., 2022).
The advancement of digital technologies has also had a profound impact on healthcare information systems. Emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and Big Data Analytics, which can process complex data more efficiently and quickly than human capabilities, are opening new perspectives for healthcare organizations by supporting knowledge development and value creation processes (Mauro et al., 2024). For example, according to Arakpogun et al. (2022), AI is a collection of information communication technologies (ICTs) that mimic human intelligence with the primary goal of improving tasks and creating greater efficiencies. Knowledge is the key component that enables AI and other similar technological solutions, adding value to organizations. The way an organization creates, shares and reuses available knowledge improves organizational performance (Argote e Fahrenkopf, 2016).
These emerging technologies are disrupting how healthcare organizations operate, making them smarter and more responsive. Clinical performance data, for instance, can be used to continuously improve knowledge bases and decision-making models, creating a continuous learning loop where performance analysis fuels the development of new care and management strategies (Senbekov et al., 2020). This leads to increasingly personalized and effective healthcare, as well as organizational management focused on constant improvement.
Most scholars have concentrated on how new digital technologies impact the clinical side of healthcare service delivery, while fewer studies have explored their contribution to management processes (Di Falco et al., 2024). New digital technologies have transformed how performance data are collected, managed, and utilized (Spanò & Ginesti, 2022; Krause, 2015). Through continuous and systematic monitoring, new performance measurement systems enable real-time, accurate, and timely data dashboards that provide reports and statistics to decision-makers (e.g., managers, physicians, practitioners) to guide and enhance decision-making processes (Lehoux et al., 2018; Adler-Milstein et al., 2019).
Based on these premises, this track invites scholars to explore the implications of AI and other digital technologies for managing healthcare systems and organizational performance through the development and application of knowledge.

This track seeks papers addressing the following questions:

• Which digital technologies support decision-making processes in healthcare, and how?
• How do new digital technologies enable the measurement of performance features and dimensions that were previously unappreciable?
• How are new digital technologies reshaping the storage, sharing, and use of knowledge within healthcare organizations?
• How can healthcare organizations integrate new digital technologies to improve their knowledge management and performance measurement strategies, supporting value creation?

Francesca De Domenico, University of Messina, Italy
Anna Maria Melina, University of Messina, Italy
Guido Noto, University of Messina, Italy
Rocco Reina, University of Catanzaro, Italy