Assessing the Knowledge, Practice, and Attitudes of Healthcare Workers on E-Health Systems in Oshakati District, Namibia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54536/jir.v1i3.2105Keywords:
Healthcare, Electronic Health, Knowledge, Practice, Attitude, Developing CountriesAbstract
The study aimed to assess healthcare workers’ knowledge, practice, and attitudes on e-Health systems in Oshakati district. There were 56 healthcare workers from different health facilities (Ekamba clinic, Ongwediva Health Center, Eluwa clinic, Oshakati state hospital - PHC) Oshakati district. The educational backgrounds of many healthcare workers regarding electronic health are little in many developing countries. Many healthcare professionals in the health industry find it difficult to use and it takes time for them to adapt to the e-health systems and thus contributing to ignorance behaviors, which leads to digitized data discrepancy. e-Health in developing countries are challenging, as there are no sufficient funds to keep such developments (e-Health systems) running and active all the time. Conclusively Limited power and internet connectivity is accessible in developing countries’ rural areas. The aim of the study was to assess the knowledge, practice, and attitudes of healthcare workers on e-Health systems. The study design for this study was a cross-sectional study design that falls under descriptive studies. The sample size consisted of 56 respondents from 5 different health facilities in Oshakati district. A simple random sampling method was used, and quantitative method which is a self-administered questionnaire was used as a data collection tool.
References
Amedzro St-Hilaire, W. (2018). Introduction To Quantitative Analysis. Industrial Relations Research and Analysis, 207–228. https://doi.org/10.1142/9789813274068_0009
Angula, N., & Dlodlo, N. (2017). Mobile technology for health information dissemination. 2017 IST-Africa Week Conference, IST-Africa 2017, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.23919/ISTAFRICA.2017.8102329
Asangansi, I., & Braa, K. (2010). The emergence of mobile-supported national health information systems in developing countries. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 160(PART 1), 540–544. https://doi.org/10.3233/978-1-60750-588-4-540
Barton, A. J. (2012). The regulation of mobile health applications. BMC Medicine, 10, 2–5. https://doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-10-46
Bhattacharya, S., Kumar, A., Kaushal, V., & Singh, A. (2018). Applications of m-Health and e-Health in Public Health Sector: The Challenges and Opportunities. International Journal of Medicine and Public Health, 8(2), 56–57. https://doi.org/10.5530/ijmedph.2018.2.12
Bouras, M. A., Lu, Q., Zhang, F., Wan, Y., Zhang, T., & Ning, H. (2020). Distributed ledger technology for ehealth identity privacy: State of the art and future perspective. Sensors (Switzerland), 20(2), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.3390/s20020483
Broomhead, S. C., Mars, M., Scott, R. E., & Jones, T. (2021). EHealth Investment Appraisal in Africa: A Scoping Review. Inquiry (United States), 58, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1177/00469580211059999
Brørs, G., Norman, C. D., & Norekvål, T. M. (2020). Accelerated importance of eHealth literacy in the COVID-19 outbreak and beyond. European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, 19(6), 458–461. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474515120941307
Choi, S., Leslie, M., Crystal, B., Sara, S., & Francis, O. (2015). Namibia Private Health Providers and Facilities Census Results (Issue November).
Choi, W., Park, M. A., Hong, E., Kim, S., Ahn, R., Hong, J., Song, S., Kim, T., Kim, J., & Yeo, S. (2013). Development of mobile electronic health records application in a secondary general hospital in Korea. Healthcare Informatics Research, 19(4), 307–313. https://doi.org/10.4258/hir.2013.19.4.307
Christians, F. (2020). Country profile-Primary healthcare and family medicine in Namibia. African Journal of Primary Health Care and Family Medicine, 12(1), 1–3. https://doi.org/10.4102/phcfm.v12i1.2242
Duhm, J., Fleischmann, R., Schmidt, S., Hupperts, H., & Brandt, S. A. (2016). Mobile electronic medical records promote workflow: Physicians’ perspective from a survey. JMIR MHealth and UHealth, 4(2), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.2196/mhealth.5464
Ellimoottil, C., An, L., Moyer, M., Sossong, S., & Hollander, J. E. (2018). Challenges and opportunities faced by large health systems implementing telehealth. Health Affairs, 37(12), 1955–1959. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2018.05099
Granath, A., Eriksson, K., & Wikström, L. (2022). Healthcare workers’ perceptions of how eHealth applications can support self-care for patients undergoing planned major surgery. BMC Health Services Research, 22(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-08219-4
Hegde, G. P., & Hegde, N. (2021). Significance Of Big Data Frameworks And Speculative Approaches In Healthcare Systems. International Journal of Advanced Networking and Applications, 12(06), 4787–4792. https://doi.org/10.35444/ijana.2021.12609
Hensher, M., Cooper, P., Dona, S. W. A., Angeles, M. R., Nguyen, D., Heynsbergh, N., Chatterton, M. Lou, & Peeters, A. (2021). Scoping review: Development and assessment of evaluation frameworks of mobile health apps for recommendations to consumers. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 28(6), 1318–1329. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocab041
Hsu, S. C., Liu, C. F., Weng, R. H., & Chen, C. J. (2013). Factors influencing nurses’ intentions toward the use of mobile electronic medical records. CIN - Computers Informatics Nursing, 31(3), 124–132. https://doi.org/10.1097/NXN.0b013e318270100b
Hyla, T., & Pejas, J. (2019). eHealth integrity model based on a permission blockchain. Proceedings - 2019 Cybersecurity and Cyberforensics Conference, CCC 2019, Ccc, 172–177. https://doi.org/10.1109/CCC.2019.00013
Ilozumba, O., Van Belle, S., Dieleman, M., Liem, L., Choudhury, M., & Broerse, J. E. W. (2018). The Effect of a Community Health Worker Utilized Mobile Health Application on Maternal Health Knowledge and Behavior: A Quasi-Experimental Study. Frontiers in Public Health, 6 (May), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2018.00133
Janet, D. (2015). A Study of Records Management Practice at Health Facilities in Upper Denkyira West District of Ghana. Advances in Life Science and Technology, 31(2224–7181), 6–15. www.iiste.org
Keshta, I., & Odeh, A. (2021). Security and privacy of electronic health records: Concerns and challenges. Egyptian Informatics Journal, 22(2), 177–183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eij.2020.07.003
Lee, M., Kang, D., Yoon, J., Shim, S., Kim, I. R., Oh, D., Shin, S. Y., Hesse, B. W., & Cho, J. (2020). The difference in knowledge and attitudes of using mobile health applications between actual user and non-user among adults aged 50 and older. PLoS ONE, 15(10 October), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241350
Luxton, D. D., June, J. D., & Chalker, S. A. (2015). Mobile Health Technologies for Suicide Prevention: Feature Review and Recommendations for Use in Clinical Care. Current Treatment Options in Psychiatry, 2(4), 349–362. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40501-015-0057-2
Martínez-Pérez, B., de la Torre-Díez, I., & López-Coronado, M. (2013). Mobile health applications for the most prevalent conditions by the World Health Organization: review and analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 15(6), e120–e120. https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.2600
Mohammadzadeh, N., & Safdari, R. (2014). Patient monitoring in mobile health: opportunities and challenges. Medicinski Arhiv, 68(1), 57–60. https://doi.org/10.5455/medarh.2014.68.57-60
Oshakati, D., & Hospital, S. (2010). u t l k b a y. 21–22.
Pharow, P., & Blobel, B. (2008). Mobile health requires mobile security: Challenges, solutions, and standardization. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 136, 697–702.
Rahim, A. (2008). Chapter-87 Sampling Techniques. Clinical Medicine Made Easy, 550–552. https://doi.org/10.5005/jp/books/10134_88
Riley, R. D., Ensor, J., Snell, K. I. E., Debray, T. P. A., Altman, D. G., Moons, K. G. M., & Collins, G. S. (2016). External validation of clinical prediction models using big datasets from e-health records or IPD meta-analysis: Opportunities and challenges. The BMJ, 353, 27–30. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i3140
Schwartz, M., Gupta, S. K., Anand, D. K., & Kavetsky, R. (2007). Virtual Mentor. 14(9), 280–287. https://doi.org/10.1145/1660877.1660918
Street, P. (2016). Namibia Inter-censal Demographic Survey 2016 Report Namibia Inter-censal Demographic Survey 2016 Report. 1–136.
U.S Embassy Windhoek. (2017). Launch of the District Health Information System Version 2. 3–5.
Were, M. C., Savai, S., Mokaya, B., Mbugua, S., Ribeka, N., Cholli, P., & Yeung, A. (2021). mUzima Mobile Electronic Health Record (EHR) System: Development and Implementation at Scale. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 23(12), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.2196/26381
Wernhart, A., Gahbauer, S., & Haluza, D. (2019). eHealth and telemedicine: Practices and beliefs among healthcare professionals and medical students at a medical university. PLoS ONE, 14(2), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0213067
Zangirolami-Raimundo, J., Echeimberg, J. de O., & Leone, C. (2018). Research methodology topics: Cross-sectional studies. Journal of Human Growth and Development, 28(3), 356–360. https://doi.org/10.7322/jhgd.152198
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Takura Bhila, Kamati Joan, Elias M Nghiiki, Jomin George
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
