Critical Issues for the Development of Sustainable E-health Solutions

Critical Issues for the Development of Sustainable E-Health Solutions

Nilmini Wickramasinghe, editor

Health care companies want to deliver their services with greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Consumers want services that are effective, responsive, convenient, and worth the cost. In response to these demands, web-based and other electronic technologies are revolutionizing health care services. Critical Issues for the Development of Sustainable E-Health Solutions surveys this rapid transformation as it is occurring worldwide.

Focusing on new applications in consumer-centered health care in North America, Europe, and Asia, the book demonstrates how electronic innovations can balance business objectives (e.g., low cost, improved performance management) while attending to consumer needs (e.g., access, quality, and value). Keeping technical jargon to a minimum, chapter authors dissect the impact of e-solutions on both sides of the health care system, and the keys to successful adaptation and sustainability. Facilitators and obstacles to IT changeovers based on economic, cultural, and other factors are identified in detail. And the book warns realistically against the pitfalls of designing and implementing tech-based platforms in systems not yet ready to make such changes.

A sampling of topics covered:

• A strategic model for health care IS design.
• Online discussion forums as a means of peer support.
• Improving web accessibility for disabled people.
• Knowledge management: often neglected yet crucial to e-health.
• Business models for electronic health care services: examples from Germany.
• A comprehensive approach to the IT-clinical practice interface.

With its wide scope of innovative ideas, Critical Issues for the Development of Sustainable E-Health Solutions is a path-breaking text for health careadministrators and researchers in health care management, health policy, and health services.

Auteur
Nilmini Wickramasinghe, who currently holds the Epworth Chair Health Information Management was appointed in Dec 2009 as a Professor to RMIT University's School of Business IT and Logistics after being a professor in the US for 15 years. She researches and teaches in several areas within information systems including knowledge management, e-commerce and m-commerce, and organizational impacts of technology with particular focus on the applications of these areas to healthcare and thereby effecting superior healthcare delivery. Professor Wickramasinghe is well published with more than 200 referred scholarly articles, several books and an encyclopedia. She has collaborated with many large organizations such as NASA and GE as well as leading healthcare organizations such as the Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Kaiser and NorthWestern Memorial Hospital. In addition, she regularly presents her work throughout North America, as well as in Europe and Australia. Professor Wickramasinghe is the editor-in-chief of two scholarly journals: International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations (IJNVO - www.inderscience.com/ijnvo ) and International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology (IJBET- www.inderscience.com/ijbet) and the Springer Series editor for Healthcare Delivery in the Information Age.

Résumé
Pervasive healthcare is an emerging research discipline, focusing on the development and application of pervasive and ubiquitous computing technology for healthcare and wellness. Pervasive healthcare seeks to respond to a variety of pressures on healthcare systems, including the increased incidence of life-style related and chronic diseases, emerging consumerism in healthcare, need for empowering patients and relatives for self-care and management of their health, and need to provide seamless access for healthcare services, independent of time and place. Pervasive healthcare may be defined from two perspectives. First, it is the development and application of pervasive computing (or ubiquitous computing, ambient intelligence) technologies for healthcare, health and wellness management. Second, it seeks to make healthcare available to anyone, anytime, and anywhere by removing locational, time and other restraints while increasing both the coverage and quality of healthcare. This book proposes to define the emerging area of pervasive health and introduce key management principles, most especially knowledge management, its tools, techniques and technologies. In addition, the book takes a socio-technical, patient-centric approach which serves to emphasize the importance of a key triumvirate in healthcare management namely, the focus on people, process and technology. Last but not least the book discusses in detail a specific example of pervasive health, namely the potential use of a wireless technology solution in the monitoring of diabetic patients.

Contenu

Foreword.- Part I Innovation & Process.- Chapter 1. Improving e-performance management in healthcare using intelligent IT solutions.- Chapter 2. An intelligence e- risk detection model to improve decision efficiency in the context of the orthopaedic operating room.- Chapter 3. Healthcare Information Systems Design: Using a Strategic Improvisation Model.- Chapter 4. Assimilation Of Healthcare Information Systems (HIS): An Analysis And Critique.- Chapter 5. e-Health in China: an evaluation.- Chapter 6. Improving The Process Of Healthcare Delivery in An Outpatient Environment: The Case of a Urology Department.- Chapter 7. Adaptations For E-Kiosk Systems In Germany To Develop Barrier-Free Terminals For Handicapped Persons.- Part II Design & Organisation.- Chapter 8. Collaborative Approach For Sustainable Citizen-Centered Health Care.- Chapter 9. Strategies and Solutions in eHealth: A Literature Review.- Chapter 10. Online Discussion Forum as a Means of Peer Support.- Chapter 11. Designing Persuasive Health Behavior Change Interventions.- Chapter 12. Accessibility In The Web For Disabled People.- Part III People.- Chapter 13. Knowledge Management: often neglected but crucial to eHealth.- Chapter 14. Patient Empowerment A Two Way Road.- Chapter 15. Citizen ePOWERment.- Chapter 16. E-health: Focusing On People-Ceintric Dimensions.- Chapter 17. A Model of Estimating the Direct Benefits of Implementing Electronic data exchange of EMRs and State Immunization Information Systems.- Part IV IS/IT.- Chapter 18. Business Models for Electronic Healthcare Services in Germany.- Chapter 19. Smart Objects in Healthcare Impact on Clinical Logistics.- Chapter 20. Agency Theory in E-Healthcare and Telemedicine: A Literature Study.- Chapter 21. Cost Accounting andDecision Support for Healthcare Institutions.- Chapter 22. A Comprehensive Approach to the IT Clinical Practice Interface.- Epilogue.