The aim of this module is to introduce students to health information systems, in particular eHealth systems, application areas, eHealth strategies and impacts. In addition, students will be introduced to the issues associated with the development of eHealth systems; the challenges of information and knowledge management; risks; e-networking and e-security.

Health Information systems (ISs): development lifecycle; development paradigms. Telehealth versus telemedicine; benefits of telehealth; uses of telehealth technologies: teleconsulting, telediagnosis, telemonitoring. Drivers and barriers to e-health care; e-health perspectives; e-health application domains such as virtual patient records, document management, administrative and support services, health information networks, information web sites, e-learning, disease management, prescribing. E-health strategies and impacts; planning and implementing e-health strategies; evaluation issues. E-health versus e-business and e-marketing. Appreciation of design, implementation, testing and evaluation issues. Software configuration, installation and maintenance. Knowledge management for e-health: e-ontologies for health care, semantic web; role of information technology in knowledge management; scalability challenges in information management. Risks in applying e-technologies; organisational, social and cultural impacts; security, privacy, standards and legal issues. E-networking: requirements, networking standards, signal, video and image compression and storage; e-networking infrastructures; mobile health networks. E-security: frameworks for privacy and security: framework for security; framework for privacy and confidentiality; privacy legislation and consent. E-health emerging trends.

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to: 1. Describe the basic components of an e-health care system. 2. Categorise the range of current and emerging e-health care applications. 3. Identify the scope and boundaries of e-health care services in the context of the e-health care system and environment. 4. Identify the benefits, issues, challenges and future possibilities of e-health care systems. 5. Identify e-networking standards, including e-networking infrastructure support, digital data formats and e-security. 6. Differentiate between ISDN and mobile e-networking infrastructures and among various satellite configurations for deploying e-health care applications. 7. Articulate the potential barriers and challenges to implementing e-health applications.

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to: 1. Demonstrate a recognition of the scope of e-health strategies and impacts. 2. Know the various facets of e-health care services to which information technology and e-technologies are being applied.

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