Abstract
Medical science has made revolutionary changes in the past decades. Contemporaneously however, healthcare has made incremental changes at best. The growing discrepancy between the revolutionary changes in medicine and the minimal changes in healthcare processes is leading to inefficient and ineffective healthcare deliver and one if not the significant contributor to the exponentially increasing costs plaguing healthcare globally. Healthcare organizations can respond to these challenges by focusing on three key solution strategies (or the value propostion); namely, 1. access - caring for anyone, anytime, anywhere; 2. quality – offering world class care and establishing integrated information repositories; and 3. value – providing effective and efficient healthcare delivery. These three components are interconnected such that they continually impact on the other and all are necessary to meet the key challenges facing healthcare organizations today. The application of mobile commerce to healthcare; namely, m-health appears to offer a way for healthcare delivery to revolutionize itself. However, little if anything has been written regarding how to achieve excellence in m-health. This chapter serves to address this major void by presenting an integrative framework for achieving m-health, developed through the analysis of longitudinal applied research conducted by INET in conjunction with academe. After presenting this framework and discussing its key inputs we then illustrate how the mapping of case data to the model enable the attainment of a successful m-health application to ensue and the benefits of adopting such a methodology.
Key Terms in this Chapter
ICT (Information Communication Technology): The combination of computers, hardware, software, networking, and telecommunications technologies.
Mobile Health Care: The delivery of health care solutions that incorporates wireless or mobile technology.
IT Infrastructure: The technology and networking foundations required to support the m-health solution.
Web of Players: The multidimensional group of players required in the delivery of health care solutions.
Health Care Value Proposition: The areas that must be addressed to ensure that the health care solution(s) provides value to the patient.