Towards a better understanding of the e-health user: comparing USE IT and Requirements study for an Electronic Patient Record.

This paper compares a traditional requirements study with 22 interviews for the design of an electronic patient record (EPR) and a USE IT analysis with 17 interviews trying to understand the end- user of an EPR. Developing, implementing and using information technology in organizations is a complex social activity. It is often characterized by ill-defined problems or vague goals, conflicts and disruptions that result from organizational change. Successfully implementing information systems in healthcare organizations appears to be a difficult task. Information Technology is regarded as an enabler of change in healthcare organizations but (information) technology adoption decisions in healthcare are complex, because of the uncertainty of benefits and the rate of change of technology. (Job) Relevance is recognized as an important determinant for IS success but still does not find its way into a systems design process

The relevance of telehealth across the digital divided the transfer of knowledge over distance

This paper explores the concept of Relevance as an explanatory factor to the diffusion of ITuse, or, in this paper particularly, the use of Telehealth. Relevance is the net value of performance expectancy and effort expectancy and contains both micro-relevance (i.e. here-and-now) and macro-relevance (i.e. actual goals) Following the case-study approach, two Telehealth situations were studied in Rwanda and The Netherlands. In the comparison, two more existing studies in Canada and Tanzania were included. The conclusion is that Relevance is the explanatory factor, whereas particularly micro-relevance is crucial. Without the micro-relevant occasions that initiate use, there will be no use on longer term In the cases studied the micro-relevance of knowledge-transfer was crucial. Furthermore distance determined Telehealth relevance. Practical conclusions to cases were drawn

"Vad då tillgänglighet? Det är ju två låsta världar!": primärvårdens upplevelser av begreppet tillgänglighet i vårdplaneringar inom Blekinge Läns Landsting

Problem/Bakgrund: Med den nationella IT-strategin inom vård och omsorgs uppmaning till ökad tillgänglighet inom vården som bakgrund, har landstinget Blekinge påbörjat ett projekt Syster Gudrun Fullskalelabb för IT i vård och omsorg. Inom projektet prövas informationsteknologiska lösningar som ska göra vårdplanering på distans möjlig. Lösningen påpekar att vårdplaneringen på så sätt ska bli mer tillgänglig. Den här uppsatsen inriktas till att söka insikt i berörd primärvårdspersonals uppfattning och erfarenhet om vårdplanering och dess tillgänglighet, lik väl hur informationsteknologiska lösningar ska komma att påverka vårdplaneringen som aktivitet. Syfte: Att få en djupare förståelse för primärvårdspersonalens erfarenheter av och uppfattning om begreppet tillgänglighet inom aktiviteten vårdplanering. Likafullt är studiens syfte att söka insikt i hur informationsteknologiska lösningar kan komma att påverka aktiviteten vårdplanering och begreppet tillgänglighet enligt primärvårdspersonal. Kortfattad beskrivning av uppsatsens utgångspunkter och undersökningens uppläggning: Uppsatsen tar ansats från en kvalitativ metod med en fenomenologisk hermeneutisk analysmodell. Slutsatser/Resultat: Resultatet vilar på teman som visar att begreppet tillgänglighet är svårdefinierat och att vårdplaneringen uppfattas ha en hänsyns- och tillgänglighetsproblematik. Respondenterna känner sig också rådvilliga till informationsteknologins existens i vårdplaneringen. Analysen utgår från den symboliska interaktionismen för att påvisa betydelsen av att medlemmar i en grupp eller aktivitet

A Proposed FAHP-based Technology Selection and Specification Methodology

In recent decades, selecting technology has become more difficult than ever due to complexity and abundance of technological options, higher cost of technology development, and rapid diffusion of technologies (Shehabuddeen et at., 2006). There is a visible need to decision makers to adopt appropriate methods for technology selection (TS). Most of the proposed approaches in the literature treat TS as a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. For example, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) (Saaty, 1980) was proposed for general MCDM problems and was proposed to address TS problems. However, the proposed MCDM methods in literature consider TS as a decision making process for support of project justification, and do not consider TS as a process within the system development life cycle (SDLC). In fact, both industrial practices and literature suggest that TS may happen in both or either 1) project justification stage (before SDLC begins), and 2) system design (an essential system development phase in SDLC). Project justification and system design have different concerns in TS problem. Project justification aims to make decision for strategic benefits, and system design aims to satisfy requirement specifications, although the specifications may also include some strategic requirements such as cost and development lead-time. There is lack of research attempt to incorporate requirement specifications into a TS problem. Furthermore, there are particular issues must be concerned in system design by TS, and these issues may not addressed by general MCDM problem. The research points out two system design issues: 1. a TS problem may require a solution composed by sub-solutions; and 2. there's an opportunity to improve efficiency by integrating TS with technology specifications (TSP) (a system design activity beside TS). These two issues present challenge to conventional MCDM approach. TS is a necessary process in system design in some IT projects, and thereby system designer faces two challenges as described above: 1) requirement specifications must be considered as TS criteria, and 2) system design issues must be addressed. As these two challenges are not addressed by literatures and are regarded as the gap, the research aims to bridge the gap by propose a new methodology for TS as well as TSP. The proposed methodology is based on FAHP (Fuzzy AHP), a MCDM approach, but has features to address above challenges. The ultimate objective of the proposed methodology is to achieve additional benefit - increased effectiveness and increased efficiency. The thesis presents not only the study of TS problem and relevant topics, and development of the proposed methodology, but also to validate the potential benefit