Department of Health Management and Economics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Department of Global Health and Public Policy, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
BMJ Open. 2018 Dec 22;8(12):e022885. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-022885.
eHealth is critically important to build strong health systems, and accelerate the achievement of sustainable development goals, particularly universal health coverage. To support and strengthen the health system, the eHealth architecture needs to be formulated and established prior to the implementation and development of any national eHealth applications and services. The aim of this study is to design and validate a standard questionnaire to assess the current status of national eHealth architecture (NEHA) components.
This study will use a mixed-methods design consisting of four phases: (1) item generation through review of evidences and experts' opinions, (2) face and content validity of the questionnaire, (3) determination of a range of possible scenarios for each item included in the questionnaire and (4) evaluation of reliability. This questionnaire is expected to generate critical and important information about the status of NEHA components that will be useful for monitoring, formulating, developing, implementing and evaluating NEHA. Our paper will contribute, we envisage, to establishment of a socio-technical basis on which governments and other relevant sectors can compare the policy interventions that boost the availability and utilisation of eHealth services within their settings.
The Ethics Committee for Research at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences approved the study protocol. We will obtain informed consent from each participant and collect data anonymously to maintain confidentiality. The translation of the findings into future policy planning will include the production of a series of peer-reviewed articles, presentation of the findings at relevant eHealth conferences and preparation of policy reports to the international organisations aiming to strengthen national capacity for better-informed eHealth architecture.
电子健康对于构建强大的卫生系统和加速实现可持续发展目标（尤其是全民健康覆盖）至关重要。为了支持和加强卫生系统，需要在实施和开发任何国家电子健康应用和服务之前制定和建立电子健康架构。本研究旨在设计和验证一份标准问卷，以评估国家电子健康架构（NEHA）组件的现状。
本研究将采用混合方法设计，包括四个阶段：（1）通过审查证据和专家意见生成项目；（2）问卷的表面效度和内容效度；（3）确定问卷中包含的每个项目的可能情况范围；（4）评估可靠性。该问卷有望生成有关 NEHA 组件现状的关键和重要信息，这将有助于监测、制定、开发、实施和评估 NEHA。我们预计，我们的论文将有助于建立一个社会技术基础，各国政府和其他相关部门可以在此基础上比较促进其环境中电子健康服务可用性和利用的政策干预措施。
德黑兰医科大学研究伦理委员会批准了该研究方案。我们将从每位参与者那里获得知情同意，并匿名收集数据以保护隐私。将研究结果转化为未来的政策规划将包括一系列同行评议文章的发表、在相关电子健康会议上展示研究结果以及为旨在加强国家能力以实现更好的电子健康架构的国际组织编写政策报告。
