Challenges That E-Health Evaluation Faces
E-health evaluation relies on assessing numerous activities and analyzing the way in which they are performed in order to identify potential inefficiencies and, consequently, act upon them.
This evaluation process is very complicated and difficult because of the challenges that one comes across at the intersection of three research fields, namely healthcare services, information systems and evaluation methodologies.
The first aspect to tackle with is represented by the sphere of healthcare services which involve many stakeholders that work with different disciplines and pursue different goals.
Complex regulations, applying especially to the direct management of patients' information, dictate the pace and direction of healthcare services.
A source of hindrance to the efficient development of e-health activities results from the rapid change of the medical knowledge and methods of healthcare delivery, the latter requiring a high degree of formalized working practices.
Medical expertise constitutes a massive and dynamic field, the contents of which double every five years.
This continuous fluctuation in the amount of information requires an interactive environment within which to be transferred and applied.
The leveling and standardization of the e-health system implementation are slowed down by the diverse regulations of healthcare services specific to each developed country.
These regulations widely range in their scope which subsequently determines variation in the way they rule the relation with patients, health professionals, the public, taxpayers, employers, educators, regulators and others implied in the process.
The evaluation of information systems also encounters a series of difficulties that are generated by the multiple perspectives employed within these systems and by the issue of how to quantify the benefits.
Some researchers identify the source of difficulty in the nature of information systems investments which change in terms of technological capability, the benefits they deliver, and of diffusion within society.
The major challenges in evaluating information systems are: - the investigation of various perspectives that may require addressing and meeting the general needs of a target group and then including them in a certain service category; - the identification and quantification of benefits associated with the information systems in public sector; - a social and technical context of use must be delimited in order for the evaluation to be proper.
The third complex and difficult research field is represented by the delineation of an evaluation methodology.
The gap between theory and practice, the lack of experience of using methods, and the difficulty of interpreting results are the main issues that challenge the evaluation of the overall e-health system.
Up to now, developing the proper evaluation methodology has failed either because the methods conceived were too rigorous to be applied to real-world contexts or because they were too limited in their applicability to other situations.
This evaluation process is very complicated and difficult because of the challenges that one comes across at the intersection of three research fields, namely healthcare services, information systems and evaluation methodologies.
The first aspect to tackle with is represented by the sphere of healthcare services which involve many stakeholders that work with different disciplines and pursue different goals.
Complex regulations, applying especially to the direct management of patients' information, dictate the pace and direction of healthcare services.
A source of hindrance to the efficient development of e-health activities results from the rapid change of the medical knowledge and methods of healthcare delivery, the latter requiring a high degree of formalized working practices.
Medical expertise constitutes a massive and dynamic field, the contents of which double every five years.
This continuous fluctuation in the amount of information requires an interactive environment within which to be transferred and applied.
The leveling and standardization of the e-health system implementation are slowed down by the diverse regulations of healthcare services specific to each developed country.
These regulations widely range in their scope which subsequently determines variation in the way they rule the relation with patients, health professionals, the public, taxpayers, employers, educators, regulators and others implied in the process.
The evaluation of information systems also encounters a series of difficulties that are generated by the multiple perspectives employed within these systems and by the issue of how to quantify the benefits.
Some researchers identify the source of difficulty in the nature of information systems investments which change in terms of technological capability, the benefits they deliver, and of diffusion within society.
The major challenges in evaluating information systems are: - the investigation of various perspectives that may require addressing and meeting the general needs of a target group and then including them in a certain service category; - the identification and quantification of benefits associated with the information systems in public sector; - a social and technical context of use must be delimited in order for the evaluation to be proper.
The third complex and difficult research field is represented by the delineation of an evaluation methodology.
The gap between theory and practice, the lack of experience of using methods, and the difficulty of interpreting results are the main issues that challenge the evaluation of the overall e-health system.
Up to now, developing the proper evaluation methodology has failed either because the methods conceived were too rigorous to be applied to real-world contexts or because they were too limited in their applicability to other situations.
