Supporting Policy Definition in the e-Health domain: a QCA based method

eHealth is broadly considered as a promising strategy to improve the economic sustainability and quality of the healthcare service provision in Europe. Nevertheless, despite the enthusiastic declarations of eHealth potential, the adoption of IT in health care has progressed very slowly. A critical factor, not deeply addressed in literature, is related to the process of prioritization of the eHealth solution to adopt, in presence of financial constrains, external and internal pressure from a wide range of heterogeneous stakeholders, and conflicting information on different technological solutions. In this paper we introduce a method supporting policy definition in the eHealth domain. This method is based on a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) of best practices and previous experiences performed through the lens of an analytic framework whose dimensions and categories are well situated in the eHealth context. This method could support policy-makers in the identification of the properties and characteristics of innovative projects at European level and to analyze the gap between the international scenario and the local context in order to understand trends and dynamics of development, to evaluate the best opportunities for innovation and, therefore, to assign priorities for the next investments by respecting the constraints of available resources.eHealth is broadly considered as a promising strategy to improve the economic sustainability and quality of the healthcare service provision in Europe. Nevertheless, despite the enthusiastic declarations of eHealth potential, the adoption of IT in health care has progressed very slowly. A critical factor, not deeply addressed in literature, is related to the process of prioritization of the eHealth solution to adopt, in presence of financial constrains, external and internal pressure from a wide range of heterogeneous stakeholders, and conflicting information on different technological solutions. In this paper we introduce a method supporting policy definition in the eHealth domain. This method is based on a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) of best practices and previous experiences performed through the lens of an analytic framework whose dimensions and categories are well situated in the eHealth context. This method could support policy-makers in the identification of the properties and characteristics of innovative projects at European level and to analyze the gap between the international scenario and the local context in order to understand trends and dynamics of development, to evaluate the best opportunities for innovation and, therefore, to assign priorities for the next investments by respecting the constraints of available resources.Uninvited Submission

A fuzzy taxonomy for e-Health projects

Evaluating the impact of Information Technology (IT) projects represents a problematic task for policy and decision makers aiming to define roadmaps based on previous experiences. Especially in the healthcare sector IT can support a wide range of processes and it is difficult to analyze in a comparative way the benefits and results of e-Health practices in order to define strategies and to assign priorities to potential investments. A first step towards the definition of an evaluation framework to compare e-Health initiatives consists in the definition of clusters of homogeneous projects that can be further analyzed through multiple case studies. However imprecision and subjectivity affect the classification of e-Health projects that are focused on multiple aspects of the complex healthcare system scenario. In this paper we apply a method, based on advanced cluster techniques and fuzzy theories, for validating a project taxonomy in the e-Health sector. An empirical test of the method has been performed over a set of European good practices in order to define a taxonomy for classifying e-Health projects.Evaluating the impact of Information Technology (IT) projects represents a problematic task for policy and decision makers aiming to define roadmaps based on previous experiences. Especially in the healthcare sector IT can support a wide range of processes and it is difficult to analyze in a comparative way the benefits and results of e-Health practices in order to define strategies and to assign priorities to potential investments. A first step towards the definition of an evaluation framework to compare e-Health initiatives consists in the definition of clusters of homogeneous projects that can be further analyzed through multiple case studies. However imprecision and subjectivity affect the classification of e-Health projects that are focused on multiple aspects of the complex healthcare system scenario. In this paper we apply a method, based on advanced cluster techniques and fuzzy theories, for validating a project taxonomy in the e-Health sector. An empirical test of the method has been performed over a set of European good practices in order to define a taxonomy for classifying e-Health projects.Articles published in or submitted to a Journal without IF refereed / of international relevanc