Abstract:
The Government of Kenya together with its partners have invested in a wide array of health information technologies geared towards enhancing health service delivery to the public. Despite the presence of numerous electronic health (e-Health) systems in most public health institutions in the country, the usefulness of these systems beyond the facility gates is yet to be realized. Getting these systems to seamlessly exchange data irrespective of their geographical location has up to date remained a mere pipe dream. This study aimed to developing an interoperability model for e-Health systems in government health facilities to enable the inter-facility exchange of medical data. This investigation was motivated by the use of interoperable e-Health technologies in many developed countries as a means of enhancing healthcare
services. The specific objectives of the study included: To evaluate the status of e-Health systems in public health facilities in Kakamega County; to determine the factors influencing the interoperability of e-Health systems in public health facilities in Kakamega County and to develop an interoperability model for e-Health systems in public health facilities in Kakamega County. The study was anchored on the theoretical model informed by three theories and one model namely organizational information processing theory, the
unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, task technology fit theory and the technology acceptance model. The research employed a descriptive research design and targeted a sample of 95 health workers drawn from a population of 1800 using Slovin’s formula. The study used stratified sampling and simple random sampling techniques to select the targeted sample. The study found that e-Health innovations in Kakamega County suffer poor infrastructural investment (52.5%), lack of integration, and poor
implementation practices such as low (40.0%) stakeholder involvement and non adherence to standards. This results in low user satisfaction scores (40.0%) which significantly affect interoperability and e-Health pervasion at 0.7 and 0.6 Pearson correlation coefficients respectively. The research concluded that the county's e-Health progress has not kept up the pace with the strategy, funding mechanisms, implementation practices and infrastructural investment capable of providing a standard interoperable e-Health solution. The research recommended that the government through the Ministry of Health and its partners should adopt a holistic approach such as the proposed Wheel Interoperability Model in implementing e-Health interoperability and transform it into a realistic and practical health solution.
