E-Health in Pakistan: Issues and Prospects

In connection with access to information in developing countries, information flows through existing networks of communication is a main theme in the current IS literature . Information-intensive infrastructure is a requirement for information dissemination due to the shortage of network infrastructure in the majority of developing states. It is verified by many researchers that information managing technologies with their main purpose of ‘handling information’ have the advantage to enhance already existing technologies by making better information-communication a priori to new ICT innovations .Presently health information system infrastructure is deficient in resources to meet the demands and needs of increasing population in developing countries. Health care systems of developing countries have major barriers like poverty and lack of technological sophistication. The basic difficulties or barriers in using information technologies include poor or inadequate infrastructure, insufficient access to the hardware and inadequate or poor resources allocation. By eliminating these barriers population health status can be improved in developing countries. This study aims to determine the main issues and prospects for e-health in the current situation of developing countries like Pakistan and the way forward for policy makers to manage all issues in future for more effective and rational decision-making in healthcare organizations. Keywords: E-health, Issues, Prospect

‘Enabling Technologies’ and ‘User-Participation’ as main Factors for Success of E-health Systems in Developing Countries like Pakistan

IT-applications in healthcare offers a novel way for improving the standard of healthcare services especially in developing states .In Pakistan both Government and private sector healthcare institutions are trying to take advantage of IT-applications for healthcare services just to come up with the rational-decisions for many healthcare-related problems in the country. ICTs for healthcare services provide opportunities for improvement by providing better, reliable and secure services to the patients, healthcare providers, staff and other stake holders both inside a hospital and also to distant patients where no physical healthcare infrastructure is available. This paper evaluates the effects of two key factors (enabling technologies and user participation) to see their influence on success of e-health systems in hospitals of Pakistan. The healthcare organizations having proper hardware and software and user participation in the development of IS ensures successful adoption and use of e-health systems in healthcare organizations anywhere including developing states. Keywords: Enabling Technologies, User-participation, E-health System, Developing Countrie

E-Readiness: A Crucial Factor for Successful Implementation of E-Health Projects in Developing Countries Like Pakistan

ICTs are currently being used in developed and developing countries and have been used to improve access to sources of knowledge for both patients and health care providers. However, the undersized health and ICT sector in a country such as Pakistan limits its potential and wider benefits. Adoption of e-health is a change process demanding a lot of behavioral modifications in the work-environment for health workers particularly doctors. Successful implementation and use of IT-applications in healthcare organizations is neither automatic nor purely technical process. It is rather a social process requiring less science and more art of developing, implementing and successfully using the new systems. The success and failure of any digital initiative in the healthcare organizations is squarely dependent more on the questions of use than on the issues of development. The technologies have gradually become less expensive and universally available. The only technical issue in the way of computerizing health services in the developing states like Pakistan is the readiness of healthcare professionals to adopt and use digital technologies. E-Health implementation on average is lower in public sector hospitals of Pakistan than private sector counterparts. Options for capacity development in health informatics are very limited in Pakistani institutions and have been reviewed on limited scale by the researchers; hence, it needs to be explored through available literature. This study aims to determine the readiness of doctors for successful e-projects’ implementation programs in the current situation and the way forward for policy makers in managing this critical issue in future. Keywords: e-readiness, e-project implementation, Developing countrie

Factors affecting the introduction of ICTs for ‘Healthcare Decision-Making’ in Hospitals of Developing Countries

Several studies have evaluated the impacts of ICTs on decision-making process in both public and private health organizations (see for example, Ahlan, 2005; Adebayo, 2007; Macleod, 2007; Bradley, 2006; Mathew, 2005; and Agerfalk, 2006) but there is a lack of such studies that integrate ICTs and effective decision making in Pakistan. Since the Pakistani governments continue to provide huge IT investment for its designated e-government agencies, the need to understand the impacts of ICTs on effective decision making becomes more important.  This study attempts to provide a better understanding of the impacts of ICTs for decision-making process at all management levels of both public and private health organizations in Pakistan. Research on the information and communication technologies for decision-making is tabling new tools and techniques in the marketplace. There is a lack of studies that assessed the impacts of ICTs on decision making particularly in health sector of Pakistan. This study attempts to unearth literature review-based definition of the local decision-situations to help private and public sector organizations in Pakistan. Keywords: ICTs, Adoption factors and Decision-making, Developing countrie

‘Technology’ and ‘Environment’ as Main Determinants of CDSS for Affective Decisions by Physicians of both Public and Private Hospitals in Developing Countries (DCs)

ICTs in healthcare sector are considered as a key element to improve decision-making in hospitals by improving the healthcare delivery services. The hesitation of having new technologies is still one of the biggest issues in developing countries for both the developers and users of hospital IT systems. This paper is intended to investigate the CDSS as one of the emerging technologies which are being used in decision-making of both the public and private hospitals by physicians and doctors for their decisions to be declared as rational ones. Data was collected from public and private hospitals of Peshawar city KPK, Pakistan. Two organizational factors (environment and technology); an enabling technology (CDSS) and three decision-making steps (intelligence, design and choice) have been used in designing the framework of the study. Data analysis reveals that only the technology factors is significantly related with the decision making process, with technology as a main predictor of decision support systems for the doctors and physicians. Decision making process and enabling technology are significantly positively related with effective decision making with the enabling technology (CDSS) as the highest predictor. Key words: Technology, Environment, CDSS and Decision Making

Hospital Administrators and Technology as Determinants for Successful IT-Usage in Public Sector Hospitals of Developing Countries

The impact assessment of IT on decision making process has now become a global issue and thereby gaining interest of researchers of both developed and developing societies (see for example Ahlan, 2005; Adebayo, 2007; Bradley, 2006). However, empirical studies have been conducted to evaluate the impacts of IT on health-related decision making by healthcare professionals in Pakistan. To fill the existing gap in the literature the study at hand is undertaken to evaluate the factors affecting the use of IT in public health organizations in KPK, Pakistan. This paper assesses the effects of two key factors (hospital administrators and technology) to see their influence on the adoption and use of IS (information system) development in hospitals of Pakistan especially public sector hospitals. The current research asserts that hospital administrators’/executives’ interest and support for implementation and use of IT and available technology are the primary determinants for successful implementation and use of the IT in public hospitals. The healthcare organizations supported by the administrators and effective hardware and software solutions can materialize successful adoption and use of IT in healthcare organizations anywhere including developing states. Key words: Hospital Administrators, Technology, and IT-usage

Factors affecting use of ICTs for Rational Decision-making in Healthcare Organizations of Developing Countries (DCs)

The increasing pressure of business environment of the information age is forcing the organizations of the entire world to adopt and use Information and communication technologies (ICTs) in decision making. It is well reported that private sector organizations are using information system for achieving strategic advantages and gaining financial and business benefits more than its public counterpart. The literature nevertheless offers limited understanding in regard of the impacts of ICTs on public and private health sector organization in Pakistani context. This study aims to investigate the adoption and use of ICTs in decision making of both the public and private health organizations to figure out existing differences. Factors like human and organization; three enabling technologies (TPS, MIS and EIS) and three decision-making phases (intelligence, design and choice) have been used in designing the framework of the study. Data analyses reveal that organization is the strongest factor for the success of IT. Literature also highlights that Decision making process and enabling technologies are significantly positively related with effective decision making with enabling technologies as significant factor. The finding of the study reveals that the public health organizations are far behind in using ICTs in decision making than their private counterpart. The executives of public organizations neither take interest in the adoption and use of ICTs nor have awareness and experience to solve their problems. It is worth mentioning that the Government of Pakistan is moving towards digitization.   Key words: IT-usage factors (human & organization), Enabling Technologies (EIS, MIS, TPS), Decision-making process (intelligence, design, choice) and Effective decision

The Role of Financial institutions and the Economic Growth: A Literature Review

The coercion to uplift an economy in a right way to growth is more a mystery than a fact. Every country in the world is determined to be amongst the strong economies of the world. This draws a line of difference between developed and developing economies of the world. Developed countries have strong economies as compared to the developing countries. Economic growth is the major intent of every nation that contributes towards its development but there are certain hurdles such as over population, illiteracy and political instability that hold back their economic growth. Economic growth of every nation is dependent upon the role of financial institutions and the ultimate financial development. Policymakers and economists generally agree that financial development contributes towards financial institutions and markets, such as commercial and investment banks, bond and stock exchanges which in turn lead to economic growth.

An Econometric Approach on Money Laundering and Its Impact on Economic Growth (A Study of Pakistan)

Money laundering is not the issue of today, as it is coming from the early days in many ways and the evil to society as it effects not only those peoples which are related to this evil as well as it also hits the noble peoples of the society by not paying the legal levies that increases the prices of products in the market. Research is carried out to check the impact of money laundering on the economy of Pakistan in an econometric way along with the other control variables (inflation, unemployment, remittances, number of crimes, total investment, and corruption). Money laundering is measured with informal economy and economic growth is measured with GDP. Annual data from 2000 to 2019 is employed for the purpose of analysis and suitable statistical tools are applied to derive the results. Through these test short run and long run effects are derived also. For analysis of the data, secondary data of two recent decades are used which is collected from the different sources i.e. economic surveys, published papers, and World Bank database etc. At the end it is concluded that money laundering has negative effect on the economy of Pakistan along with other variables

E-Health System: A Study of Components and Practices in Developing Countries

E-health systems used in different health setups are rare in developing countries but they consist of the computerization of patient records in hospitals and clinics, document delivery through Internet, information exchange and communication, e-Cards for patient ID, electronic scheduling system, hospital labs and hospital admission, computerized diagnosis and support for treatment. It also provides advanced decision-making and sophisticated use of diagnostic laboratories. Every e-health system establishes a basic ‘infrastructure’ of computers, networks, communications and a technical department filled with IT professionals to continuously uphold and improve the infrastructure, give training to  the doctors & physicians and other medical staff and continuously provide technical support as and when required by them. Given the uncontrollable nature of technical support for e-health systems, developing countries like Pakistan are facing issues in creating full-bodied infrastructural facilities that are both competitive with the external environment and compatible with the internal user requirements. This piece of writing is an effort to highlight some of the main issues in developing countries in connection with adoption and use of e-health systems. Also this study intends to identify some of the prospects for IT-applications in healthcare organizations in countries like Pakistan just for the reduction of their sense of isolation in the world by connecting the doctors’ community online through internet facilities to learn, and do business and carry out organizational processes effectively. Keywords: ICTs, E-health systems, components (e-health) and practices (e-health)