E-Health Adoption by Healthcare Organizations in Developing Countries: Case of Morocco

Healthcare organizations include medical and administrative units. Medical ones deploy skills and knowledge to promulgate patient care. As for the administrative units, they provide necessary tools to support medical activities. Both of these two units generate divers information. Thus, usage of Information Technology (IT) becomes a crucial strategic challenge for these organizations (Ammenwerth et al, 2004). Some authors noted that IT usage offers opportunities ranging from cost reduction and clinical errors to the care quality improvement (Scott et al., 2007). Since 1997, Morocco, as a developing country, has undergone several issues related to care access, productivity and quality of healthcare organizations. These issues led the Moroccan government to a process of structural reforms enabling health sectors to improve management processes, quality and performance of these organizations. In 2001, the government launched an integrated project to support healthcare reforms: the Project Management and Financing of Health Sector (PMFHS). This project aimed to introduce managerial tools to support changes in healthcare system. It gave better support to healthcare professionals and improves the quality and efficiency of the promulgated care services. Implementing the IT in the administrative and healthcare processes was considered as one of the main goals of this project. Despite these efforts to enhance the care system, it is still faced to a major shortcoming: an inadequate hospital management. In 2005, Moroccan government launched E-health project. This later aimed to provide timely reliable indicators to health decision makers and improve availability and access to information and data related to citizens and health professionals. Moreover, a strategy 2008-2012 was proposed, it aimed to ensure care fairness offer between regions and facilitated access to the rural population. It also aimed to provide citizens confidence toward health system by improving health quality and reducing costs. Furthermore, the current state of the Moroccan e-health could be illustrated by the 2012-2016 strategy. Improvement of the health system governance was the pillar axe of this strategy. It is focussed on usage of Information Technology and its contribution to improve health quality within healthcare organizations. As part of this initiative, Provincial Hospital (PH) Hassan I of Tiznit city, located in south of Morocco expected to integrate IT within its units. Many objectives are behind this integration: improve the care quality, ameliorate communication, reduce waiting times for patients, and reduce hospital costs. However, Integration of these technologies is faced to several difficulties affecting its adoption by health professionals. Majority of these difficulties are related to cultural issues, to deficiency of qualified people able to handle the technology, to ineffective training and to lack of support. Hence, identification of factors predicting E-health adoption by physicians and nurses working in developing countries, especially in Morocco becomes a necessity. It helps to assure the success of e-health integration within E-Health Adoption by Healthcare Organizations in Developing Countries: Case of Morocco