A Framework for Studying Perceptions of Rural Healthcare Staff and Basic ICT Support for e-Health Use: An Indian Experience

Abstract

Current research observes that electronic healthcare has various advantages, such as easy recording, retrieval, and sharing of patient data anytime and anywhere while providing data privacy. Almost all developed countries currently practice e-health. On the other hand, many developing countries still rely on traditional paper-based healthcare systems that are quite vulnerable to data loss, loss of patients' privacy due to nonsecured data sharing, and mandatory consumption of physical space to store patients' records as stacks of files. India is a developing country that broadly applies a traditional healthcare system. Unfortunately, no studies have been conducted to identify precise reasons why e-health solutions have not been adopted in the Indian primary health centers (PHCs). To fill the research gap, this work is an attempt to propose a complete framework that includes (1) a systematic survey of available resources at the level of healthcare staffs' perceptions toward using e-health and basic information communication technology (ICT) supports at the organizational level and (2) a mathematical model to engineer significant factors for analysis of overall preparedness of the health centers. Healthcare administrators (Block Medical Officer of Health) from each PHC (n = 10) and in total 50 healthcare staff (e.g., doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and midwives) participated in the study. Initially, a systematic survey was conducted to explore the possible factors at the individual (e.g., healthcare personnel) and organizational (e.g., healthcare administration) levels. A questionnaire was generated to capture the data based on the factors identified. The collected data were mathematically modeled to run regressions with significance tests examining the effects of these factors on the level of satisfaction of the end users. The result shows that basic ICT for support at the organizational levels is significantly lacking to implement e-health in these PHCs, although healthcare staffs are ready to use it. Proper measures have to be adopted mostly at the organizational level, such as improving basic ICT support before what will in all probability be a successful implementation and practice of e-health in Indian PHCs.