IMPLEMENTING EHEALTH THROUGH NETWORKING: THERE IS MORE OF ‘E’ IN EHEALTH BEYOND NETWORK IMPLEMENTATION

The growth of Information and Communications Technology has brought a significant change in the means and mechanisms of handling issues and challenges of health services. The injection of Information and Communications Technology has changed the concept of health and associated services sector by coining a new term eHealth. eHealth deals with the process of providing best class services to various nodes in the health care environment. This is possible due to linkages and inter-connectivity of various siloed works which ensure that patient, as well as stakeholders, are able to access the best class service. However, implementing eHealth through networking is challenging as there is more of ‘e' in eHealth than is anticipated. This paper takes into consideration the ‘e' parameters of eHealth which need to be taken into account while designing and implementing eHealth network. The paper discusses the practical implementation of several components of ‘e'. The future scope results in the inclusion of more and more of eHealth network components and accordingly draft out those ‘e'components which are applicable in the practical scenario for a well-developed eHealth network system.