E-health: effect on health system efficiency of Pakistan

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The health system in Pakistan is spraining because of increasing cost and demand gravities. The shortage of skilled health care workers is one of the main factors of health issues. There is a need to move away from the dependency of tools such as pen, paper, and human memory to a milieu where patients and health care providers can reliably access and share health information in real time across geographic and health sector boundaries. DESIGN AND SETTINGS: The purpose of this research is to observe the effect of e-health on the physician-patient relationship and to analyze the capacity of health professionals by noting information and communication technologies usage as indicators. METHODS: Structured questionnaire was used to gather data from physicians to judge the success and effect of existing e-health policy. Both categorical and Likert scale variables were used. The analysis of data was performed using chi-square test and binary logistic regression. RESULTS: Specialist doctors comprised the major proportion of health care professionals in both male and female categories with good knowledge about Internet usage. E-health-based communication does not seem to be gender specific. Logistic regression revealed that busy doctors whose patients are more than 100 per week believe that e-health would significantly strengthen their communication with patients (OR=3.06; 95% CI=1.05-8.87). Among other significant impacts of e-health include reduced consultation period and time of diagnosis. CONCLUSION: E-health technology can play a crucial role in controlling many epidemic diseases through effective surveillance. E-health implementation will result in improving the efficiency, better access of general public to the health care system, and eradication of diseases in Pakistan.