Title: The rationale of e-health evaluation: the case of NHS Direct

Authors: Hamid Alalwany; Sarmad Alshawi

Addresses: Brunel Business School, Brunel University, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK. ' Brunel Business School, Brunel University, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK

Abstract: An important area of research is that of the evaluation of e-health services. A holistic e-health evaluation framework should address the aspects that are hampering healthcare services from embracing the full potential of information and communication technologies towards successful e-health initiatives. Towards building a holistic evaluation framework for e-health services, this paper is intended to examine the rationale of e-health evaluation, as the paper argues that this aspect should be addressed first in the development of such a framework. NHS Direct which is one of the largest e-health services in the world has been chosen to discuss and validate a set of evaluation rationales and their applicability in practice.

Keywords: healthcare services; e-health evaluation; evaluation framework; evaluation process; evaluation rationale; electronic healthcare; NHS Direct; UK; United Kingdom; online healthcare.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIS.2012.046297

International Journal of Business Information Systems, 2012 Vol.9 No.4, pp.484 - 497

Published online: 16 Aug 2014 *

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