E-Health technological barriers faced by Iraqi healthcare institutions

Abstract

The health records management issues have detrimentally affected the Iraqi healthcare sector resultant from the inferior information technology integrity and the complicatedness of data. In order to resolve this problem, other methods of storage, management, and retrieval of health-related data can be offered by e-Health services. These aspects are important in tracking patients’ health conditions using multiple platforms at the service provider’s own convenience. However, there are numerous issues that hinder the extensive adoption of e-Health services by the health establishments in Iraq, such as issues on security and privacy, legalities connected to policies, and its implementation. The significance of the current study is its identification of the crucial aspects that will lead to the success of impacting the technical staff towards their positive acceptance and behavior with regard to the employment of e-Health information system in Iraqi hospitals. A self-administered survey was carried out on 104 technical staff from various healthcare organizations in Iraq using a simple random sampling technique. A nonparametric second-generation multivariate analysis was conducted on the compiled ordinal data by the utilization of the PLS-SEM approach. The outcomes indicated the favorable impact of several factors on the doctor’s employment of e-Health in Iraqi hospitals, comprising Availability and Affordability of the hardware and software, ICT Support Service, Network Reliability, Privacy, and Security. The results are important in assisting the comprehension of e-Health systems in the management of health data, in addition to the provision of the pertinent recommendations for policymakers to provide guidance, issue advice, directives to the healthcare professionals toward the continuous consideration of using advance information and communications technology at work.