Global Health Enterprise Architecture and the Pathway to Health Outcomes from Science Data

Jan B.M. Goossenaerts¹, Adesina Iluyemi², Kaushalesh Lal³

¹Dept. of Technology Management, Eindhoven University of Technology,

PO Box 513, Paviljoen D12, NL-5600 MB Eindhoven, the Netherlands, e-mail: j.b.m.goossenaerts@tue.nl

² Centre for Healthcare Modelling &Informatics, University of Portsmouth, UK

e-mail: Adesina.Iluyemi@port.ac.uk

³ UNU/MERIT, Keizer Karelplein 19, 6211 TC Maastricht, The Netherlands

e-mail: lal@merit.unu.edu

Health system performance, health worker capacity, access to health knowledge, improved decision and policy making process and better health outcomes for patients are among the areas where ICT-based solutions promise to deliver results (WHO, 2007). Enterprise architecture helps stakeholders to align change interventions in data and knowledge intensive work systems. Public architectural frameworks, including the Federal Enterprise Architectural Framework of the US Government (FEAF), the industry driven Integrated Health Enterprise (IHE) and the UK cross government enterprise architecture and its application in the health care sector, alongside medical online resources such as provided by NIH, PubMed, HINARI (WHO), and local health knowledge not captured or accessible through formal methods are offering an increasingly explicit and common resource base to guide and align ICT-enabled change interventions. The work systems involve medical and health data and its interactions with clinical practice (bed-side, home or community care, telemedicine, electronic health record (EHR), health management information system (HMIS)...) via heterogeneous device networks (computer networks, PDAs, mobile phone, Laptops..) in myriad socio-technical settings (community, hospital, homes, telekiosk, the research lab,...). Development under a "Global Health Enterprise Architecture" is indispensable in order for all stakeholders to maximize value (health outcomes) and mitigate risks (livelihood erosion). The near-future services are envisioned using the mock-up of evidence/benchmarking/assessment enhanced medical guideline services (NIH, NHS, WHO,.. approved) over heterogeneous device networks, such that workflows and reporting by (para-) medical practitioners (and patients) are generated (workflow) or aggregated (reporting).

References

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Geels, F. W., Schot, J., (2007), “Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways”, Research Policy 36, pp. 399-417.

Madon T.,. Hofman, K. J., Kupfer, L., Glass, R. I., (2007), „Implementation Science”, Science, Vol. 318., no. 5857, pp. 1728 – 1729.

WHO, "Building foundations for eHealth: Progress of Member States," World Health Organization, Geneva 2007.