Department of Industrial Engineering, Stellenbosch University, New Industrial Engineering Building; Reception on 2nd floor, Banghoek Road, Stellenbosch, 7600, South Africa.
DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Scientometrics and Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (SciSTIP), Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, 7600, South Africa.
BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2020 Mar 12;20(1):55. doi: 10.1186/s12911-020-1028-0.
Research on the development and functioning of technology platforms specifically for health applications in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), is limited. The healthcare sector has also been resistant to platform adoption due to characteristics such as sensitive data and high cost of failure. A framework for the design, development and implementation of technology platforms in the South African health context could therefore contribute to the gap in research as well as provide a practical tool that platform owners could use to potentially increase the adoption of platforms in this context.
The research design for this study was based on the Grounded Theory Conceptual Framework Analysis process. The process focused on mapping and investigating data sources, categorising and integrating concepts, synthesising these concepts into a framework and iteratively evaluating the framework. The first stage of the evaluation process was a preliminary evaluation exploring an existing Health platform in South Africa (MomConnect). The second evaluation stage included local and international interviews with nine experts to identify any missing concepts in the framework. Stage three included a case study and case study interviews which led to the formulation of the final framework and management tool.
The developed and evaluated framework comprised three components, namely the pre-use component, which includes considerations the platform owner should be aware of prior to using the framework. The framework comprises of two dimensions, 1) an ecosystem dimension to guide the platform owner to consider different ecosystem actors before embarking on designing a platform 2) a platform development dimension that include typical platform development components and presents an interpretation of the viewpoints included in the ecosystem levels.
The final framework can be used by platform owners as a management tool. A unique contribution of this study is that the framework draws from two platform perspectives, namely the engineering and the economic perspectives to provide a holistic understanding of platforms. Finally, a contribution of this article is the tailoring of the framework for the South African health context.
针对撒哈拉以南非洲（SSA）特定于健康应用的技术平台的开发和功能的研究有限。由于敏感数据和失败成本高等特点，医疗保健部门也抵制采用平台。因此，在南非卫生背景下设计、开发和实施技术平台的框架不仅可以填补研究空白，还可以为平台所有者提供一个实用工具，以增加平台在该环境中的采用率。
本研究的研究设计基于扎根理论概念框架分析过程。该过程侧重于映射和调查数据源，对概念进行分类和整合，将这些概念综合成一个框架，并迭代评估框架。评估过程的第一阶段是对南非现有的健康平台（MomConnect）进行初步评估。第二评估阶段包括对 9 位专家进行的本地和国际访谈，以确定框架中是否存在缺失的概念。第三阶段包括案例研究和案例研究访谈，最终形成了最终的框架和管理工具。
开发和评估的框架包括三个部分，即预使用部分，其中包括平台所有者在使用框架之前应考虑的事项。该框架由两个维度组成，1）生态系统维度，用于指导平台所有者在设计平台之前考虑不同的生态系统参与者；2）平台开发维度，包括典型的平台开发组件，并对生态系统层面包含的观点进行解释。
平台所有者可以将最终框架用作管理工具。这项研究的一个独特贡献是，该框架借鉴了平台的两个视角，即工程和经济视角，以提供对平台的全面理解。最后，本文的一个贡献是针对南非卫生环境定制框架。
