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

‘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-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

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

Social Organization and Determinants of Spatial Distribution of Khur (\u3ci\u3eEquus hemionus khur\u3c/i\u3e)

Khur (Equus hemionus khur) is an endangered species for the most part restricted in little Rann of Kutch (India) and surrounding areas. We investigated factors influencing spatial distribution and social organization of khur. The spatial distribution is largely influenced by distribution of food patches and water in this ecosystem. The inter group distances were smaller in resource rich areas in comparison to resource poor areas (p = 0.017). The group sizes are larger in areas having higher productivity (r = 0.85) and rainfall (r = 0.88). Four social units are observed in khur (a) Family group (median = 17), (b) All male group (median = 17), (c) Territorial stallion and (d) displaced stallion. The family group and all male group are very fluid showing fission and fusion in group sizes (CV = 73% to 63% respectively). The maximum home range overlap was between family group and territorial stallion. The territorial stallion defends water sources, productive grassland and scrubland. Khur’s social organization is territorial harem owing to high predictive availability of resources in space and time and mares preference for areas having good resources

Impact of Behavioral, Technological & Societal Antecedents on Continuous Usage Intention of Mobile Banking

The aim of this research was to examine the impact of behavioral, technological, and social antecedents on the continuous usage intentions for mobile banking, through the integration of well-known theories such as TTF, DOI, ECM, and UTAUT 02. The research design is built on the positivist approach supported by the quantitative method. A survey questionnaire was used to gather data. PLS-SEM 3.0 was implemented to empirically validate the stated hypotheses. The sample comprised of 234 mobile banking users in Karachi, Pakistan. The results indicated the strength of the model (R2) was 71.8%, while the predictive relevance (Q2) was 51%. Furthermore, price value, habits, satisfaction, and word of mouth, were significant antecedents of continued usage intentions, while performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, social influence, and effort expectancy, were found to be insignificant. A statistically significant mediating role of satisfaction and word of mouth was identified. These findings will be helpful for financial institutions, telecommunication companies, software providers, and other stake holders, to efficaciously execute financial inclusion by focusing on technological, behavioral, and societal aspects of mobile banking users

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

‘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