An Overview of E-Health Development in Australia

Literature Review

E-government is the use of information technology in general, and e-commerce in particular, to provide citizens and organizations with more convenient access to government information and services to citizens, business partners and suppliers, and those working in the public sector (Turban, 2002). Other definitions of e-government suggest that it is the transformation of public administration towards modern administration and democracy (Wimmer & Traunmuller, 2001); and the use of technology to simplify and automate transactions between governments, constituents and business (Milford, 2000). The Australian government has been actively exploiting information technology (IT) to enhance efficiency and accessibility in the provision of e-services to citizens. Singh et al. (2008) advocate that in Australia e-government services are deployed by all three levels of administration, the Federal, State and Local. They also advocate that the most popular e-government services in Australia to date are informational, followed by services that are interactive such as health (Medicare) and transactional which include e-tax and vehicle registration. They also confirm that citizens prefer bundled services with access to from a one stop shop. Other e-government services adopted by the government of Australia include e-procurement and e-health (AGIMO, 2006). The focus of this chapter is e-health.