Abstract
As the North American healthcare system moves to online value-based care, the importance of engaging patients and families continues to intensify. However, simply engaging patients and families to improve their subjective satisfaction will not be enough for providers who want to maximize value. True optimization entails developing deep and long-term relationships with patients through understanding their needs. This chapter discusses the result of a research conducted in Canada. Questionnaires were given, and the collected data were analyzed using SPSS 20.0 statistical. The findings indicate that IT healthcare is rapidly growing. However, despite a significant number of initiatives in Canada related to online health information, lack of interoperability remains one of the major challenges in implementing successful health IT systems at this time.
TopBackground
Controversies about health IT implementation have been, and are still, generated by the difficulty of accurately determining demand, unequal access to participants' information, regulated pricing and pricing mechanisms and intervention of the third paying party, as well as ethical and moral aspects related to the patient-doctor relationship, the limit between research and treatment, the perception of health and illness, etc. (Beig et al., 2007; Hallyburton & Evarts, 2014; Kontos et al., 2014).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Customer Satisfaction: Is a term frequently used in marketing. It is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation.
Online Healthcare: Or cyber medicine is the use of the Internet to deliver medical services, such as medical consultations and drug prescriptions. It is the successor to telemedicine, wherein doctors would consult and treat patients remotely via telephone or fax.
Emotional Intelligence: It is the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.
Healthcare Infrastructure: An adequate health care infrastructure has many components: physical facilities that make care accessible; laboratory, training, and other support facilities; reliable supplies of pharmaceuticals and other materials; trained staff and professional training systems; and mechanisms to distribute resources and expertise.
Customer Relationship Management: CRM or Customer Relationship Management is a strategy for managing an organization’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers.
End User: The person who actually uses a particular product.
Information Technology: Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to store, retrieve, transmit, and manipulate data, or information, often in the context of a business or other enterprise.