Dalibor Stanimirovic and Mirko Vintar
reaching mutual consensus with all stakeholders, distribute the assignments and strictly monitor and inspect the work on the project;
• Ensure adequate resources before the start of each phase of the project and make realistic plans within both temporal as well as financial terms;
• Mobilize all stakeholders to ensure commitment, material and moral support, encourage their participation and constructive criticism, provide an inclusive plan for permanent education of the stakeholders and communication between the project team;
• Enhance the preparation and implementation of public tenders( materially and procedurally) related to procurement of ICT equipment and realization of smaller individual ICT projects within the overall e‐health project;
• Perform a constant supervision and strict control of the already executed project tasks with respect to the substantive and temporal objectives, and ensure close monitoring of the tasks which are in the execution phase;
• Inform and sensitize the public, promote project achievements so far, organize marketing campaign to popularize the e‐health project and increase user acceptance of e‐health services, gain support from the media, experts and citizens; e‐health is a socio‐technical project.
Delays in e‐health development require a detailed analysis of the current situation, accommodation of new resources and well‐coordinated implementation of operational tasks, which will gradually bring the development of e‐health to its final phase. These measures usually necessitate a radical change in the project management and government financial stimulus. Determination to resolve the problems with e‐health development and implementation, and eventually provide medical and economic benefits, will therefore require the mobilization of all stakeholders and experts in the field, definition of clear and measurable objectives and a consensus about the necessary public expenditures. Related
5. Conclusions
Although reasonably susceptible to subjectivity and arbitrary interpretations, evaluation in hand provides a valuable insight into the development problems of e‐health in Slovenia. Main limitations of the study probably concern the adequacy of performed weighting process and the fact that development level of individual e‐ health component was actually defined on the basis of primary and secondary sources investigation without empirical testing and practical validation of each component in health care environment. Accordingly, the issues of equal weights assigned to designated indicators and objective definition of development level raise some important questions of principle, while the results of the evaluation may therefore be arguable and misleading. These issues should be properly resolved in further research and succeeding experiments trying to establish a theory‐based and balanced framework for evaluation of e‐health development. Despite certain methodological dilemmas and limited resources, conducted evaluation reveals the dynamics of e‐health development and related deficiencies and barriers. In addition, by applying presented guidelines, it may eventually provide the groundwork for further development and implementation of the intractable and costly e‐health projects, and useful assistance for enhanced allocation of project management resources.
References
Ahern, D. K., Kreslake, J. M. and Phalen, J. M.( 2006)“ What Is e‐health: Perspectives on the Evolution of e‐health Research”, J Med Internet Res, [ online ], Vol 8, No. 1., www. jmir. org / 2006 / 1 / e4 /.
Ammenwerth, E., Gräber, S., Herrmann, G. and Bürkle, T. J.( 2003)“ Evaluation of health information systems‐problems and challenges”, International Journal of Medical Informatics, Vol 71, No. 2 – 3, pp 125 – 36.
Berg, M.( 2001)“ Implementing information systems in health care organizations: myths and challenges”, International Journal of Medical Informatics, Vol 64, No. 2, pp 143 – 156.
Chaudry, B., Wang, J., Wu, S., Maglione, M., Mojica, W., Roth, E., Morton, S. C. and Shekelle, P. G.( 2006)“ Systematic Review: Impact of Health Information Technology on Quality, Efficiency, and Costs of Medical Care”, Annals of Internal Care, Vol 144, No. 10, pp 742 – 752.
Danzon, P. M. and Furukawa, M.( 2001)“ e‐Health: Effects of the Internet on Competition and Productivity in Health Care”, in: Rivlin, A. M. and Liton, R. E., eds. The Economic Payoff from the Internet Revolution, Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC.
Della Mea, V.( 2001)“ What is e‐Health: The death of telemedicine?”, J Med Internet Res, [ online ], Vol 3, No. 2., www. jmir. org / 2001 / 2 / e22 /.
497