eHealth in Zimbabwe, a case of techno-social development

IFIP — The International Federation for Information Processing, 2008

The health system in Zimbabwe is facing challenges in the provision of equity and quality health care, especially in the rural areas. In response, this has resulted in mounting interests in the potential of eHealth (application of Information and Communication Technologies in the health sector) by the Government of Zimbabwe through the Ministry of Health and Child Care. The Ministry of Health is focusing on the gradual improvement of existing and new health systems involving the incorporation of Information and Technology to optimize the current health care system. The hypothesis of this paper is that eHealth has the potential of advancing health care to better health outcomes and improved cost efficiency of care. This paper presents the potential of eHealth and mHealth (application of mobile technology for health, as part of eHealth) to facilitate equity and quality health care. In conclusion eHealth and mHealth hold promises to improve and optimise the health system in Zimbabwe, especially in the rural areas. Keywords: eHealth, Masvingo, Zimbabwe.

Journal of Medical …, 2005

Background Lack of consensus on the meaning of eHealth has led to uncertainty among academics, policymakers, providers and consumers. This project was commissioned in light of the rising profile of eHealth on the international policy agenda and the emerging UK National Programme for Information Technology (now called Connecting for Health) and related developments in the UK National Health Service.Objectives To map the emergence and scope of eHealth as a topic and to identify its place within the wider health informatics field, as part of a larger review of research and expert analysis pertaining to current evidence, best practice and future trends.Methods Multiple databases of scientific abstracts were explored in a nonsystematic fashion to assess the presence of eHealth or conceptually related terms within their taxonomies, to identify journals in which articles explicitly referring to eHealth are contained and the topics covered, and to identify published definitions of the concept. The databases were Medline (PubMed), the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), the Science Citation Index (SCI), the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), the Cochrane Database (including Dare, Central, NHS Economic Evaluation Database [NHS EED], Health Technology Assessment [HTA] database, NHS EED bibliographic) and ISTP (now known as ISI proceedings).We used the search query, “Ehealth OR e-health OR e*health”. The timeframe searched was 1997-2003, although some analyses contain data emerging subsequent to this period. This was supplemented by iterative searches of Web-based sources, such as commercial and policy reports, research commissioning programmes and electronic news pages. Definitions extracted from both searches were thematically analyzed and compared in order to assess conceptual heterogeneity.Results The term eHealth only came into use in the year 2000, but has since become widely prevalent. The scope of the topic was not immediately discernable from that of the wider health informatics field, for which over 320000 publications are listed in Medline alone, and it is not explicitly represented within the existing Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) taxonomy. Applying eHealth as narrative search term to multiple databases yielded 387 relevant articles, distributed across 154 different journals, most commonly related to information technology and telemedicine, but extending to such areas as law. Most eHealth articles are represented on Medline. Definitions of eHealth vary with respect to the functions, stakeholders, contexts and theoretical issues targeted. Most encompass a broad range of medical informatics applications either specified (eg, decision support, consumer health information) or presented in more general terms (eg, to manage, arrange or deliver health care). However the majority emphasize the communicative functions of eHealth and specify the use of networked digital technologies, primarily the Internet, thus differentiating eHealth from the field of medical informatics. While some definitions explicitly target health professionals or patients, most encompass applications for all stakeholder groups. The nature of the scientific and broader literature pertaining to eHealth closely reflects these conceptualizations.ConclusionsWe surmise that the field – as it stands today – may be characterized by the global definitions suggested by Eysenbach and Eng.

BMJ: British Medical Journal, 2005

British Medical Journal, 2005

In many different ways, such studies have thus sharply criticised conceptual and practical divisions between technical and “non-technical” (human, social, organizational, political, etc.) dimensions of eHealth projects.

Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2005

In 2003, the National Health Service in England and Wales, despite its large investment in information and communication technology, had not set a national research agenda. The National Health Service has three main research and development programs: one is the Service Delivery and Organisation program, commissioned in 2003, and the others are two parallel "scoping exercises" to help set a research agenda. This paper reports on one of those projects. A parallel literature review was carried out by others and has been reported elsewhere.

Journal of medical Internet research, 2017

Despite rapid growth in eHealth research, there remains a lack of consistency in defining and using terms related to eHealth. More widely cited definitions provide broad understanding of eHealth but lack sufficient conceptual clarity to operationalize eHealth and enable its implementation in health care practice, research, education, and policy. Definitions that are more detailed are often context or discipline specific, limiting ease of translation of these definitions across the breadth of eHealth perspectives and situations. A conceptual model of eHealth that adequately captures its complexity and potential overlaps is required. This model must also be sufficiently detailed to enable eHealth operationalization and hypothesis testing. This study aimed to develop a conceptual practice-based model of eHealth to support health professionals in applying eHealth to their particular professional or discipline contexts. We conducted semistructured interviews with key informants (N=25) fr...

Technological advances combined with changing health care challenges such as ageing populations and the growing problem of chronic illness mean that there is growing policy support and user pressure for e-Health services. However, despite this the normalisation and integration of e-Health services into routine service delivery remains patchy. There are a few notable successes such as the use of electronic medical records in primary care and PACS systems in secondary care but for example, there are less than expected normalised telecare services for chronic disease management. This talk highlights why e-Health is so important and the pressure for real change is growing yet mainstreaming of e-Health services remains problematic and makes suggestions to facilitate future progress.