Title: Are organisations prepared for e-health implementation to respond to pandemic influenza?

Authors: Junhua Li; Holly Seale; Pradeep Ray; Amina Tariq; C. Raina MacIntyre

Addresses: Asia-Pacific Ubiquitous Healthcare Research Centre (APuHC), The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia ' School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052 Australia ' Asia-Pacific Ubiquitous Healthcare Research Centre (APuHC), The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052 Australia ' Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Faculty of Medicine, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052 Australia ' School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052 Australia; National Centre for Immunization Research and Surveillance of Vaccine Preventable Diseases (NCIRS), The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Westmead NSW 2145, Australia

Abstract: E-health can facilitate communication and interactions among stakeholders involved in pandemic responses. Its implementation, nevertheless, represents a disruptive change in the healthcare workplace. Organisational preparedness assessment is an essential requirement prior to e-health implementation; including this step in the planning process can increase the chances of programme success. The objective of this study is to develop an e-health preparedness assessment model for pandemic influenza (EHPM4P). Following the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), 20 contextual interviews were conducted with domain experts from May to September 2010. We examined the importance of all preparedness components within a five-dimensional hierarchical framework that was recently published. We also calculated the relative weight for each component at all levels of the hierarchy. This paper presents the hierarchical model (EHPM4P) that can be used to precisely assess healthcare organisational and providers' preparedness for e-health implementation and potentially maximise e-health benefits in the context of an influenza pandemic.

Keywords: e-health implementation; preparedness assessment; influenza pandemic; flu pandemic; analytical hierarchy process; AHP; electronic healthcare; organisational preparedness; organisational readiness.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBET.2013.055373

International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, 2013 Vol.11 No.3, pp.215 - 230

Published online: 27 Sep 2014 *

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