Public facing transactional eHealth Government services in Malta : an empirical investigation on key factors leading to adoption

Abstract

E-health is promoted as a means to bring growth, cost savings and process enhancement to the healthcare sector. It is also a tool through which patients and doctors can have more control over their own – or their patients’ – health data. For e-health to be effective, take-up of these services needs to be as widespread as possible. In Malta, citizen adoption of the local transactional e-health government service is approximately 2%. Such statistics are the reason why this research has aimed to incorporate the views of stakeholders in order to create a number of guidelines that can aid the increase in adoption of e-health services. From the mixed method studies conducted, it was found that there are various factors that deter users from making use of such local services. Following a rigorous data collection and analysis process, a number of design strategies or guidelines emerged – aimed to help mitigate adoption-related risks and difficulties. These guidelines include factors ranging from involvement of key stakeholders, accessibility, portability, promotion, education, usability, customisation, service integration, information architecture, maintenance and others. These evidence-based guidelines not only discuss the main issues recognised but also provide solutions grounded in stakeholders’ recommendations, views, experiences and perceptions, while backing these up with views from peer-reviewed literature. The purpose of these guidelines is to assist e-service designers (policy makers and contractors) in the creation, or future revisions of, Maltese e-health government services – informing design processes and decisions to ensure e-service citizen adoption, and in turn, success.