Considerable advances in research and applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care have been made over the past several decades. The contexts of use have diversified, as the focus of AI has shifted from applications for acute care to use in health promotion and applications in the home. However, despite these advances, a range of challenges and human factors issues need to be considered to achieve the full potential of AI applications in clinical and health care settings.

JMIR Human Factors and the journal’s guest editors welcome submissions to a special issue considering AI applications in health care in terms of issues of adoption, human factors, and usability. This issue will focus on identifying the types of applications, users, and contexts where AI has proven to lead to successful adoption. In addition, there is also a need to identify specific issues related to the broad field of human factors, where numerous challenges have impacted the adoption of AI technologies in health care. Identifying key factors associated with the successful adoption of AI technology will become increasingly critical as innovative AI applications emerge and become more widely deployed.

We welcome original research papers, short communications, viewpoints, and reviews that provide insight into the intersection of AI in health care and human factors. We aim to bring together work that critically evaluates the use and application of AI in health care from multiple perspectives. This includes work on the human factors of AI in health care, cognitive factors, usability, implementation issues, and regulatory, and policy issues. There is specific interest in work that covers the relationship between a range of human factors (broadly considered), and the development, application, and deployment of AI in health care, as we believe this is an area that needs further advancement.

Submissions may include, but are not limited to, the following areas of research:

Human factors of AI applications
Usability of AI applications
Policy issues in implementing AI in health care
Regulatory issues in implementing AI in health care
Ethical issues related to the design and implementation of AI in health care (including data privacy)
Safety issues with AI in health care
Usability or end-user experience with AI
AI system adoption in health care
Cognition and AI (including automation bias and fairness)
Socio-technical aspects of AI in health care
Human-centered design and evaluation of AI systems

Submission deadline: Decemebr 31, 2023

How to Submit

To submit an article to this JMIR Human Factors theme issue, please visit the submission page and select the journal section: “Theme Issue 2022: AI and Human Factors.”

See How do I submit to a theme issue? and consult our Instructions for Authors for more information on how to submit a manuscript.

Submissions not reviewed or accepted for publication in this JMIR Human Factors theme issue (e-collection) may be offered cascading peer-review or transfer to other JMIR journals, according to standard JMIR Publications policies. For example, highly technical papers may be transferred or submitted to JMIR Biomedical Engineering. Early-stage formative work that informs the design of future interventions or research may better fit the scope for JMIR Formative Research. Authors are encouraged to submit study protocols or grant proposals to JMIR Research Protocols before data acquisition to pre-register the study (registered reports); subsequent acceptance in one of the JMIR Publications journals is then guaranteed.

Please direct questions regarding this theme issue to the JMIR Human Factors Editorial Team at ed-support@jmir.org.

All articles submitted to this theme issue will be shared and published rapidly through the following mechanisms:

All peer-reviewed articles in this theme issue will be immediately and permanently made open access. This is the standard for all titles within the JMIR Publications portfolio.
Articles can be made immediately available in JMIR Preprints (with a DOI) after submission if authors select the preprint option at submission to enable this service.

Theme Issue Editors

Professor Andre Kushniruk, BA, MSc, PhD, FACMI, Editor-in-Chief, JMIR Human Factors

Guest Editors

Professor Elizabeth Borycki RN, PhD, FIAHIS, FACMI, FCAHS, Editor-in-Chief, JMIR Nursing

Open peer review