Critical Analysis of Electronic Health Readiness Assessment Factors for Development of e-Health Framework in Iraq

Abstract

The assessment of e-Health readiness offers an accurate picture regarding the existing conditions, and a description of facilitated operational plans, as well as functional approaches to effectively adopt e-Health. To determine and assess readiness, indices need to be adjusted to particular conditions with regards to each country. To ensure that e-Health is applied successfully, pre-examination needs to be done pertaining the context of usage, so as to gather the real needs that ensure reaping all the possible advantages associated with this technology. The healthcare sector in Iraq still lags behind in terms of progress with the adoption rate of ICT systems. The country’s current healthcare system is faced with various challenges that hinder the adoption of e-Health system, as well as the performance of assessment of healthcare professionals that would enable the enhancement of institutional performance. Consequently, the current study is aimed at identifying a list of success factors that could impact healthcare professionals when assessing e-Health readiness pertaining to the healthcare sector in Iraq. In line with this, eight experts, who belong to the medical and technical staffs from six different hospitals in Iraq, were interviewed. After which, a literature survey was conducted to confirm the relevancy of the collected factors so that all of these falls within the circumstance of healthcare. Four major dimensions (core readiness, environmental readiness, individual readiness and technological readiness) were identified, which could cast an impact on the perspective of healthcare professionals while assessing e-Health readiness. Finally, based on these findings, a conceptual model was constructed.