No abstract

Purpose The emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected organizations differently, leading to adopting alternative business operation models, including digital technologies. The rapid adoption of digital technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates how adaptive technologies intersect with human and social institutions in potentially risky or inequitable ways. However, the sustenance of the digital transformations (DTs) induced by the COVID-19 crisis is still unclear. Thus, this study aims to evaluate the sustenance of DTs accelerated by the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic response in the Tanzanian context amid the crisis. Design/methodology/approach The study used a qualitative approach that included a literature review and semi-structured interviews with Information and Communication Technology (ICT) personnel from selected public institutions in Tanzania. The interviews elicited interviewees’ perspectives on the following: the digital revolution that occurred during the COVID-19 outbreak; how it affects their work; and the country’s future digital landscape. Additionally, a literature analysis established and generalized the practices used by the governments during the COVID-19 crisis. Findings The results show that there is enormous, colossal press toward adopting digital solutions. The use of digital technologies, such as digital payments, e-commerce, telemedicine and online education, has attracted the attention of businesses and individuals in Tanzania. Consequently, the move has enabled the country to cope with the cascading impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and progressive economic recovery to achieve its development goals. Furthermore, the findings offer policy strategies for taking the induced DTs to the next level and sustaining it. Originality/value This study reports the lessons from the DTs induced by COVID-19 and their sustenance. It also contributes toward forward-thinking reforms and policy measures that could help Tanzania and the likes harness the DTs'’ potential in the wake of the pandemic.

Electronic Health (eHealth), particularly in the form of electronic health records (eHRs), has proved to greatly provide to the health sector, a number of benefits such as real time receipt of health-care information and timely addresses health issues. However, many of the eHRs are fragmented as such they face some operational challenges, one of which is eHRs interoperability. The interoperability is caused by lack of architectural guidelines toward eHRs development, and poor collaboration among eHRs development vendors to mention a few. Early efforts to interoperate eHRs suggest that a single mobile app that can access multiple integrated eHRs is among the viable solutions on the way to eHRs interoperability. The research work reported in this dissertation focused to support sharing of information among different eHRs through a single mobile app by creating a data exchange framework. Tanzania as a case study was used to survey issues and challenges facing mobile apps development process when developing mobile app solution for eHRs interoperability. A preliminary study was conducted in mobile app development environment and it was established that the developers have no unified development process to connect multiple databases/repositories. Interviews, questionnaires, and observation were used as data collection tools in two different regions in Tanzania namely; Dar es Salaam and Arusha. The interoperability issues and challenges identified by the survey revealed a demand from mobile app developers of a single mobile app connection to multiple integrated eHRs. The main objective of the reported work was to satisfy this demand - a mobile app connecting to multiple eHRs. As a result, a new Mobile App – Data Exchange Framework (MADE-Framework) has been developed and a prototype implemented and evaluated by mobile app developers and the health practitioners. The framework incorporates a Data Exchange Component (DEC), essentially an exchange engine, acting as its core data exchange and access control mechanism to facilitate data and information sharing among multiple eHRs. The DEC Architecture can integrate multiple eHRs to interoperate and extends the capability into a single mobile app. It involves Open Health Information Mediator (OpenHIM) and MEDIATOR as sub-components to facilitate the data and information sharing mechanism. Based on the evaluation tests, the DEC has successfully proved to connect a single mobile app to multiple eHRs. Therefore, the new MADE framework is a new approach to utilize legacy and newly implemented eHRs without much worry on obsoleteness of database technologies. In this way it will protect investments and providing business continuity within the evolving eHRs.