Preparedness for e-Health in developing countries: the case of Ghana

Abstract

As Ghana embarks on a national e-Health initiative there is the need to explore its preparedness in terms of socioeconomic and development, technology infrastructure and operational preparedness, and skills and human resources. This paper reports on a literature review as part of a research program, which aims to inform the development of an effective roadmap for the successful implementation of the national e-Health initiative in Ghana. The literature was searched for factors of e-Health adoption in developing countries; and realization of the anticipated benefits through IEEE, Medline, Google scholar and Google search engines. Sixteen (16) articles were reviewed were from 176 related articles that were found. The literature review found the two highest priority objectives in in e-Health Africa: providing health education for health professionals (identified in 7 of the 16 projects reported on in the literature) and improvement of primary health care services 9 of the 16 projects). Six (6) or 39% each of the 16 projects reported a lack of skills and Human Resources Socioeconomic issues, and Technology infrastructure problems reported in 22% or the remaining four (4) projects. The paper concluded that the effects of these challenges could lead to Ghana like many other developing countries struggling to adopt e-Health, its inability to realize the potential benefits of e-Health and its ability to institutionalize and sustain e-Health.