In order to become customer-driven company and provide superior services to customers, business at any forms focuses on finding new ways that attract new customers while maintaining the existing ones. Currently, healthcare institution is to develop and implement an excellent information system and medical technology that ensures the delivery of superior healthcare services. Since benefits of using electronic records are related to the improvement of healthcare treatment, healthcare institutions are interested in disease management programs and, consequently, their health plans are rapidly embracing this concept.
Due to the countless benefits of Information Technology (IT), it has been applied in various fields to manage both profit and non-profit organization. This condition coins the realization of electronic health program or e-health. By definition, e-health or eHealth refers to the general terms describing the aspects of healthcare management with support of the advanced information technologies. In other terms, it also details several factors that compose of the eHealth including the public health, medical informatics, and business in which all done through the internet.
Similarly, the concept of e-business also becomes the basis of other e-application, e-health. Concerning the issue, this paper will discuss about the scope of e-health, the advantages, and its analysis using the Gibbs Reflective Cycle. E-Health 1. Introduction The fast pace of computer and telecommunication technologies has spawned the most important invention in the 20th centuries, the internet. Historically, it grows from the laboratory research and trialed to send message between universities in the U. S.
and further advanced by the invention of World Wide Web (WWW) by computer expert, Tim Berners Lee who become the head of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the development of internet application, business is among the first adopter due to the undeniable benefits of having the global presence. The so-called e-Business has undeniable role in the process of globalization due to several benefits: a. It is the ability of the technology to produce efficiency, cost effectiveness, increased profitability and even increased productivity b.
It is the ability of the technology to provide standardized form of communication irrespective of language. c. E-business technologies enable some mechanical processes to be taken over entirely by machine. d. The ability of E-Business to enable the immediacy of current transaction (Corbitt, 2003) Similarly, the concept of e-business also becomes the basis of other e-application, e-health. Concerning the issue, this paper will discuss about the scope of e-health, the advantages, and its analysis using the Gibbs Reflective Cycle. 2. Gibbs Reflective Cycle 2. 1. Description
By definition, e-health or eHealth refers to the general terms describing the aspects of healthcare management with support of the advanced information technologies. In other terms, it also details several factors that compose of the eHealth including the public health, medical informatics, and business in which all done through the internet (Eysenbach, 2001). There are several elements of healthcare that included in the development of e-health applications as following: a. Scheduling application including the systems for check-up booking, human resource management
b. Logistics of hospital that manage the supply of medicinal products, bed arrangement and patient transfer c. Management information systems (DRGs, resource management) d. Administrative application including the inventory management, employees remuneration database and payroll, and accounting e. Pharmacy systems f. Nursing assignment and schedule systems g. Radiology information systems h. Laboratory information systems i. Patient administration applications including the patient medical record, treatment history, and demographic data
j. Networked Services with other hospitals and other healthcare providers to establish the transfer of clinical and administrative data as part of telemedicine initiatives such as tele-pathology services and tele-consultation for remote areas 2. 2. Feelings The development of e-health is no longer the complementary for healthcare business. In fact, it becomes the differentiation that leads to competitive advantages for those who set up the e-health since it gives the benefits for patients.
According to one research, the implementation of e-business including the e-health is driven by several factors. First, the healthcare providers develop e-business to distribute healthcare product and services in addition to corporate information. Second, the introduction of e-business believed to enhance company image, improve communication with customer, and provide customer support. Another reason is to increase the sales of healthcare services through the provision of e-business by establishing the online registration for patients etc.
In addition, the introduction of e-health also helps the company to carry out their global campaign so that their services are easier to be acknowledged by foreign customers and other healthcare providers. 2. 3. Evaluation One example of e-health implementation in health care provider is one provided by Matria Healthcare Inc, the largest provider of comprehensive disease management services especially related to chronic diseases and other high-cost health treatments (Krazit, 2002).
Matria Healthcare also has experience with the development of information technology and connectivity of complex systems in order to support the company in preparing for these issues as the disease management industry matures. Moreover, Matria Healthcare also provides comprehensive integration technology and services for Matria’s disease management programs. The interfaces of integration and connectivity allow the transfer of data between all the constituents and the Matria TRAXTM disease management platform (Krazit, 2002; Matria Healthcare, 2005). 2.
4. Analysis Considering the adoption of information technology in healthcare business, we find that it provides great benefits for both healthcare providers and the customers/patients. Some of the benefits are: • Reduce time and cost to provide care • Ensuring higher quality care • increasing timeliness and accuracy of health care information (Oklahoma State Department of Health, 2003) 2. 5. Conclusion Electronic health or e-health or eHealth does not simply provide the corporate portals where patients can browse information of healthcare services etc.
The most important aspect is it should provide benefits for both healthcare provider in terms of increase brand and profitability. In general, there are three aspects or benefits that healthcare; they are reduced time and costs, support the program to ensure higher quality care, and increase timeliness and accuracy of health care information (Oklahoma State Department of Health, 2003). 2. 6. Action Plan In order to succeed the e-Health program, there are several action plans that should be performed.