The Role of E-Health in Total Quality Management

Introduction

The development of Information Technology (IT) brought many radical changes in living conditions (Ahamd Awad Rawabdeh, 2007). In the health sector, healthcare e-services have become widespread with the prevalent use of the internet (Hadwich et al., 2010) and in the early years of the twenty-first century the concept of e-health emerged (Mukherjee & McGinnis, 2007). Hadwich et al. (2010) stressed that e-health is a relatively new field which constantly progressing. Therefore, many applications and concepts are in their formation stage. Besides, in the literature, there is no consensus on the definition of e-health. According to Mukherjee and McGinnis (2007, p. 350), e-health can be defined as “combined use of electronic information and communication technology in the health care sector for clinical, education, research, and administrative purposes.”

Consumer behavior is converting into healthcare from a “hospital-centered reactive model to an individual-centered proactive model” that accentuates early determination and circumvention of disasters and personalized health administration. The adoption of e-health has ascended exponentially since the outbreak of COVID-19 (Singh & Ravi, 2022). Especially, some intention in the use of e-health has accelerated expanding of it. For healthcare consumers, for instance, investigating for medical information is one of the most popular online activities. When consumers lack trust in their doctor’s abilities or inefficacious treatment, they seek online information about medical care (Hadwich et al., 2010). In addition, patients have access to digital cameras, scanners, and videoconferencing facilities (Mukherjee & McGinnis, 2007). From the side of customers, e-health has provided easier and more appropriate obtain to health resources and information. It could assist customers to learn about healthier lifestyles, rise health consciousness and knowledge in general, and achieve a better comprehension of health topics, illnesses, and medical treatment (Fujioka & Stewart, 2013). On the other hand, from the side of business, e-health facilitates many benefits such as enhanced ambulant and distant therapeutic services by linking in new ways (using video conferencing, or store-forward systems) (Ahamd Awad Rawabdeh, 2007), decreased demands on staff, providing better quality outcomes, reduced probable expenses in health care (Hosseinzadeh et al., 2021), improve communication efficiency by managing and distributing information to impact health (Sheraz et al., 2013). Consequently, it can be concluded that both from the aspect of businesses and consumers, e-health is a beneficial application.

Total quality management (TQM) is an overarching approach that is a means of administrating processes throughout the business. TQM comprises improvements in all departments, of all processes, through standardization and management of variation (Gunasekaram et al., 1998). It is an approach to constantly enhancing the quality of firms that comprises administration, employees, customers, and the business process (Schiavone et al., 2022). Although the implementation process may have difficulties, it is expected to have positive benefits and advantages for the organization overall in the long run (Gunasekaram et al., 1998).