ICT-Based Health Information Services in Primary Level Health Care Of Wolaita Zone Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

The government of Ethiopia has understood the need for information communication technology-based health information services implementation as a tool in order to bring quality health service delivery since 2008. Despite the efforts to integrate, it has not been well developed particularly in the primary level health care settings. To follow up on the previous research and shed light on this PhD dissertation aimed to explore the culture of health information needs, sources, channels, acceptability, and challenges when implementing information communication technology-based health information services in a primary level health care setting in Wolaita zone, Southern Ethiopia. The present study was followed interpretive paradigm ethnography research design to develop an in-depth understanding of information needs and complex culture of information communication technology-based health information services phenomena within primary level health care. Data was collected through direct immersion in and interaction with total of 42 key informant interviews and 240 hours elapsed participant field observation over eight months period. The collected data were transcribed verbatim and entered into the Qualitative Data Analysis mine software version 5.0. The information seeking and behavior need, Unified theory of acceptance and use of technology and the information communication technology for health models were used to analyze the empirical data. The finding supports most conceptual links on the examined models and lends support to the most of hypothesized relationships. More importantly, the findings extend the application of the underpinned theoretical models and their tenets in explaining the culture of health information needs, sources, channel; acceptance: and challenges in the implementation of information communication technology-based health information services in a primary level health care setting. On this basis, this study concludes that the implementation of information communication technology-based health information services at the primary level health care is not limited to those theoretical models and their tenets. Furthermore, the implementation is not matured beyond a policy debate to a very tangible, organized, and implementation-oriented endeavor. This implies that it is important to shift the paradigm/gaze from piecemeal of multiple pilot projects to a unified strategy that touches multiple buttons/ challenges for the successful implementation in the context of facilities. Thus, through the analytical lens of models and frameworks, I expanded and collapsed the unique themes peculiar to the primary level health care settings and proposed the new framework and groundbreaking roadmap to guide the implementation of information communication technology-based health information services in the primary level health care context of Ethiopia.