Information and Communication Technology in Healthcare Management Systems: Prospects for Developing Countries

Abstract

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are being widely used in healthcare management systems. Rapid advancements in ICT in the last decade or so provide solutions to the problems in healthcare management systems. These include a wide spectrum of issues such as patient safety, dietary management, telemedicine, digital imaging, document management etc. This paper explores the emerging technologies which are being used for the improvement of the healthcare process and identify the problems and their probable solutions specifically in the context of developing countries. Telemedicine offers a way of improving the standard of healthcare especially in the developing world. The developing countries such as Pakistan, can exploit these to give better healthcare services as well health education. This paper highlights the growth of ICT sector in the developing world and explores its possible uses in health sector. These may help healthcare professionals and community health workers to carry out their work in a better way particularly in remote areas.

Mobile Health: An Efficient Service to Promote Self-care among People Introducing e-selfcare

“…Smart mobile phones are the most widely used devices that are commonly used for short messages, phone calls, the internet, wireless systems, health software and video links. As such, the results from previous studies show that three strategies are used to achieve self-care objectives [13]. The first strategy is the maintenance of health which is intended to avoid numerous afflictions such as early death, accident-related handicaps, psychological illnesses, behavioural problems and heart discomforts.…”

“…The third strategy for self-care achievement is the application of mobile for acute illnesses. With the development of self-care services, depending on the health status of the society and factors that can contribute to people's education, health authorities should provide people with different mobile health facilities, including support systems and information packages; this could be in line with suitably planned health service policies; as such, the proper flow of information should also be safeguarded anywhere and at any time [13].…”

“…Offering care to those with chronic illnesses, in an attempt to cope with the growing number of such ailments; form a key priority for the health sector. In this regard, the elevation of self-care is an essential undertaking [1,13]. The third strategy for self-care achievement is the application of mobile for acute illnesses.…”

“…The development of a robust infra-structure, with suitable facilities, for information technology and communications [13].…”

Data and Knowledge Management in Designing Healthcare Information Systems

“…It uses the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) infrastructure to provide healthcare services to organizations and individuals situated at distant locations. It is a relatively new model for interaction with the patients or other important entities such as healthcare service providers, hospitals, pharmacies, physicians and governmental agencies [27]. Moreover, some very advanced technologies such as Tele-surgery have been developed where robotic instruments will perform the surgery on the basis of the audio and visual data received by the surgeon present at a remote or a distant location.…”