Designing an E-Health Management Framework for Social Security Organization of Iran

Abstract

Introduction: In Iran, almost half of the population receive health benefits from social security organization (SSO) that reveals the necessity of proper planning and management. As a relatively recent practice, e-health is widely using to facilitate achieving the managerial goals of healthcare organizations. The current study aimed to design an e-health management framework for SSO of the I.R. Iran. Method: This is an applied study that was carried out using descriptive-analytical methods. Based on the results of recent studies and available reports (both national and international), a conceptual model and a researcher-made questionnaire were developed. After confirming the reliability and validity of the questionnaire, it was filled out by 557 of high and medium level managers of the SSO. Simultaneously, e-health strategies of the following countries were comparatively evaluated: Turkey, India, the UK, Estonia, Sweden, and Pakistan. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to analyze the data. Results: The Kaiser-Meyer-Elkin and Bartlett tests indicated the sufficiency of the sample size and correlation between items of the questionnaire. Varimax Rotation showed that for five factors the special value was higher than one (indicates items of this instrument are loaded on these five factors). 23% of the variance was accounted for in the first principal component, 15% on the second, 14% on the third, 11% on the forth, 9% on the fifth (72.47% of the variance in total). Comparative indexes and the Tucker-Lewis index are accepted in the range greater than 0.9. The root-mean-square deviation and residual of mean-square error should be less than 0.80. These conditions were true in the present study, but RMSD was higher at about 0.009. Besides, the lower the Akaike the better the fitness of the model. Which the model with five factors had the lowest Akaike. The final model consisted of 20 (out of 22) items. Conclusion: Based on the results and included items, 20 items had a significant association with related factors. Therefore, the developed framework can be used for the SSO. Future studies are needed to evaluate and monitor this framework.