Organizational e-Health Readiness: How to Prepare the Primary Healthcare Providers’ Services for Digital Transformation

Agnieszka Kruszyńska-Fischbach, Sylwia Sysko-Romańczuk, Tomasz M. Napiórkowski, Anna Napiórkowska and Dariusz Kozakiewicz
Additional contact information
Agnieszka Kruszyńska-Fischbach: Faculty of Management, Warsaw University of Technology, 02-524 Warsaw, Poland
Sylwia Sysko-Romańczuk: Faculty of Management, Warsaw University of Technology, 02-524 Warsaw, Poland
Tomasz M. Napiórkowski: Institute of World Economy, Warsaw School of Economics, 02-554 Warsaw, Poland
Anna Napiórkowska: Institute of World Economy, Warsaw School of Economics, 02-554 Warsaw, Poland
Dariusz Kozakiewicz: Faculty of Management, Warsaw University of Technology, 02-524 Warsaw, Poland

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 7, 1-22

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has had two main consequences for the organization of treatment in primary healthcare: restricted patients’ access to medical facilities and limited social mobility. In turn, these consequences pose a great challenge for patients and healthcare providers, i.e., the limited personal contact with medical professionals. This can be eased by new digital technology. While providing solutions to many problems, this technology poses several organizational challenges for healthcare system participants. As the current global situation and the outbreak of the humanitarian crisis in Europe show, these and other likely emergencies amplify the need to learn the lessons and prepare organizations for exceptional rapid changes. Therefore, a question arises of whether organizations are ready to use modern e-health solutions in the context of a rapidly and radically changing situation, and how this readiness can be verified. The aim of this article is to clarify the organizational e-heath readiness concept of Polish primary healthcare units. This study employs the triangulation of analytical methods, as it uses: (i) a literature review of e-health readiness assessment, (ii) primary data obtained with a survey (random sampling of 371 managers of PHC facilities across Poland) and (iii) the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) method, employed to estimate the structural model. The evaluation of the model revealed that its concept was adequate for more mature entities that focus on the patient- and employee-oriented purpose of digitization, and on assuring excellent experience derived from a consistent care process. In the context of patients’ restricted access to medical facilities and limited social mobility, a simpler version of the research model assesses the readiness more adequately. Finally, the study increases the knowledge base of assets (resources and capabilities), which will help healthcare systems better understand the challenges surrounding the adoption and scaling of e-health technologies.

Keywords: COVID-19; e-health; innovation in health and care; technology enabled care; organizational readiness; PLS-SEM method; digital transformation; primary healthcare providers’ services (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/7/3973/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/7/3973/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:7:p:3973-:d:780598

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().