Critical issues for the development of sustainable e-health solutions.

Abstract

Healthcare delivery globally is at a cross roads. In particular, the U.S. healthcare system has been noted as being significantly more costly than any other OECD country (Wickramasinghe et al. 2008a). Moreover, the use of healthcare services in the U.S. is below the OECD median by most measures and it is predicted that healthcare costs will be over 20% of GDP before 2020 (Wickramasinghe et al. 2008a). Given this, most experts are in agreement that the current healthcare system in the U.S. is in crisis. In response to the current untenable situation, the Obama government has made healthcare reform a priority (Wickramasinghe et al. 2008b). Integral to such reform is the need to redesign inefficient and outdated processes and transition to a patient centric technology enabled healthcare delivery system.