The Internet, Global Healthcare Management Systems, and Sustainable Development: Future Scenarios

Abstract

Telecommunications technologies and the Internet offer a revolution in management of global healthcare systems and sustainable development. This paper explores emergent telecommunications infrastructures and their consequences for the future of healthcare management using a scenario methodology. A world systems view from evolutionary economics provides a unique perspective on sustainable development. System performance on the dimensions of universal access, equitable resource allocation and consumer participation are evaluated in light of ideological, political and cultural considerations of governance. Alternative scenarios vary according to market dynamics led by healthcare institutions (push) or by consumer demand (pull), and according to system control mechanisms that may be technologically embedded, institutional or behavioural. The scenario analysis suggests that telecommunications technologies and the Internet may contribute significantly to improve global healthcare system performance, to manage ideological diversity and to reduce the wide inequities that separate the industrialized nations from the developing world.

Healthcare sustainability and the role of intellectual capital

“…Internet communication technologies can also incentivize new care paths as well as home care and allow patients to independently manage disease with the supervision of qualified health professionals (Pencheon, 2015). However, the adoption of technology depends on incurred costs (Ling et al, 2012;Séror, 2001), on competences for making them functional (Tamburis, 2006) and investments in corporate culture (Séror, 2001) to effectively adopt and use innovation.…”

A cross-sectional pilot study assessing needs and attitudes to implementation of Information and Communication Technology for rational use of medicines among healthcare staff in rural Tanzania

“…Compared to richer countries most health facilities in SSA countries have little or no access to modern technical tools. However, several studies indicate that the impact of ICT on health systems in resource-strained countries will be significant and will transform the practice of medicine just as it has done in high-income countries [ 1 , 6 , 7 ].…”

Healthcare Information Management Systems

“…While the predicted "global village" of the 21st century [90,91], with global empowerment and diversification of healthcare information, seems technically feasible, the basic problems outlined in the first section of this chapter and the difficulties in making high-quality information globally available [92] are still raising significant questions. e-healthcare applications also have been realized in many countries around the world.…”