Futuros digitais em construção: Imaginários, políticas e práticas da saúde digital em Portugal

The digitization of health has become a watch-word in the discourses of health systems management around the world. The politi-cal imperatives underlying it are “efficiency” and “sustainability” of public health systems. Inciting the construction and feasibility of innovative inf rastructures to collect, store and exchange large amounts of biometric and clinical data, and the reconf iguration of health care delivery models, through the transformation of therapeutic interactions, the discursivity of digital health feeds sociotechni-cal imaginaries and suggests the imposition of a new global civic epistemology on how to live healthily, advocating at the same time a new biosocial ethos. Simultaneously, it raises important ethical issues such as the safeguard of privacy in handling personal data and equal access to healthcare. Based on the preliminary results of an investigation on the implemen-tation of digital health in Portugal carried out by a multidisciplinary team, it is proposed in this communication to disclose the main elements highlighted by the informants to imagine the future in which the digitalization of health care will transform the traditional ways how medical treatments are carried out, how help-seeking behaviours are performed and how healthcare system is managed in Portugal.