Abstract
The adoption of information and communication technology by elderly care organizations is an inevitable trend. Most empirical studies on e-Health service quality have focused predominantly on the general population rather than on the elderly. Thus, the generalizations are rather problematic. In addition, in the planning stage, pre-implementation analysis is considered critical but seldom performed. In this research, an instrument to evaluate the e-Health service quality in nursing homes was developed based on the SERVQUAL model. Furthermore, a pre-implementation analysis combining the SERVQUAL questionnaire and importance performance analysis was performed. Dissatisfactory factors were identified as follows. Regarding the physical environment quality, the residents expressed that the nursing homes did not provide well-maintained rooms and that the temperature in the rooms was unsuitable. Regarding the outcome quality, the elderly residents replied that the medical treatments and doctor visits were not well scheduled. Regarding the interaction quality, the residents indicated that the staff did not solve their problems sincerely or clearly understand their needs. Health care informatics (HCI) such as an electronic shift system (ESS) and electronic health records (EHR) are proposed to eliminate these problems. Given current resource limitations, our instrument and methodology proposed in this research could be extremely meaningful in practical application.
Highlights
Despite being a widely used term, e-Health has no single universally accepted definition.According to the WHO, e-Health is the transfer of health resources and health care by electronic means [1]
The results showed that patients who adopted the e-Health system were satisfied with its functions and were willing to continue using this advanced system for illness treatment, illness prevention, and patient service dimensions
The negative values indicated that the nursing homes were not meeting the expectations of their customers
Summary
According to the WHO, e-Health is the transfer of health resources and health care by electronic means [1]. Another definition of e-Health states that it is “the use of electronic devices capable of creating, storing, retrieving, and transmitting of data between end users for the purpose of improving patient safety and quality of care” [2]. The increased use of ICT in medical practice has been demonstrated to offer the potential for large benefits for health care, such as improved quality of care, patient empowerment, cost savings, and the promotion of behavioral change in patients [3,4,5].
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