Constructive eHealth evaluation: lessons from evaluation of EHR development in 4 Danish hospitals

Aligning Virtual Care in Canada with the Needs of Older Adults

Public health measures associated with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have accelerated the adoption of virtual health care across Canada. We explore the opportunities that virtual care presents in achieving the Quadruple Aim and challenges to navigate, through the lens of care for older adults. In particular, we recommend virtual care-related policies related to older adults that address (a) limited uptake among the socio-economically disadvantaged, (b) user-centered design of virtual care technologies, and (c) integration of iterative evaluations to ensure equitable and efficient achievement of desired outcomes. As virtual care accelerates forward, we must not leave older Canadians behind.

Approaches to Assess E-Health Programs: A Scoping Review

Context:

With the increasing trend of adopting e-Health technologies, the need for evidence for assessing e-Health technologies has become crucial. The appraisal of the e-Health program is important as this could provide guidance on further e-Health investment and adoption.

Aims:

The aim of the study was to provide an articulated body of literature on the current state of knowledge about the assessment of e-Health interventions.

Settings and Design:

Scoping review was conducted based on the framework provided by Arksey and O'Malley (2005) and considering enhancements proposed by Peters et al. (2015).

Subjects and Methods:

We searched the electronic databases and available gray literature from inception until the last week of October 2019. PRISMA flowchart for the study selection process was used to guide reporting. Data extraction included information on study design, authors, year of study, country, and key findings in terms of approaches used for assessment of e-Health programs. Data were compiled and summarized narratively.

Results:

Searches were performed between October and December 2019. Seventy-one relevant papers published between the years until the last week of October 2019 were reviewed and analyzed. After considering all the eligibility criteria, 15 papers were included. We identified 15 approaches for assessing e-Health programs, which were summarized and tabulated.

Conclusions:

This review showed that available literature on the assessment of e-Health programs is heterogeneous in terms of the methodology used. e-Health interventions are highly contextual; therefore; the phase of maturity and objective of the assessment should be considered while carrying out the assessment of e-Health programs.

Planning a holistic summative eHealth evaluation in an interdisciplinary and multi-national setting: a case study and propositions for guideline development

Background

Summative eHealth evaluations frequently lack quality, which affects the generalizability of the evidence, and its use in practice and further research. To guarantee quality, a number of activities are recommended in the guidelines for evaluation planning. This study aimed to examine a case of an eHealth evaluation planning in a multi-national and interdisciplinary setting and to provide recommendations for eHealth evaluation planning guidelines.

Methods

An empirical eHealth evaluation process was developed through a case study. The empirical process was compared with selected guidelines for eHealth evaluation planning using a pattern-matching technique.

Results

Planning in the interdisciplinary and multi-national team demanded extensive negotiation and alignment to support the future use of the evidence created. The evaluation planning guidelines did not provide specific strategies for different set-ups of the evaluation teams. Further, they did not address important aspects of quality evaluation, such as feasibility analysis of the outcome measures and data collection, monitoring of data quality, and consideration of the methods and measures employed in similar evaluations.

Conclusions

Activities to prevent quality problems need to be incorporated in the guidelines for evaluation planning. Additionally, evaluators could benefit from guidance in evaluation planning related to the different set-ups of the evaluation teams.

Standards, Processes and Tools Used to Evaluate Health Information Systems Quality: A Systematic Literature Review (Preprint)

Background

Evaluating health information system (HIS) quality is strategically advantageous for improving the quality of patient care. Nevertheless, few systematic studies have reported what methods, such as standards, processes, and tools, were proposed to evaluate HIS quality.

Objective

This study aimed to identify and discuss the existing literature that describes standards, processes, and tools used to evaluate HIS quality.

Methods

We conducted a systematic literature review using review guidelines focused on software and systems. We examined seven electronic databases—Scopus, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, IEEE Xplore, Web of Science, and PubMed—to search for and select primary studies.

Results

Out of 782 papers, we identified 17 (2.2%) primary studies. We found that most of the primary studies addressed quality evaluation from a management perspective. On the other hand, there was little explicit and pragmatic evidence on the processes and tools that allowed for the evaluation of HIS quality.

Conclusions

To promote quality evaluation of HISs, it is necessary to define mechanisms and methods that operationalize the standards in HISs. Additionally, it is necessary to create metrics that measure the quality of the most critical components and processes of HISs.

A design and evaluation framework for digital health interventions

Digital health interventions (DHIs) have the potential to help the growing number of chronic disease patients better manage their everyday lives. However, guidelines for the systematic development of DHIs are still scarce. The current work has, therefore, the objective to propose a framework for the design and evaluation of DHIs (DEDHI). The DEDHI framework is meant to support both researchers and practitioners alike from early conceptual DHI models to large-scale implementations of DHIs in the healthcare market.