Research Methods in Information and Communication Technology - Literature review Example

?Running Head: Research Methods in ICT Research Methods in ICT Research Methods in ICT Literature Review In the 21st century, the health care sector is changing rapidly. UK is evolving as a complex society with its special public health care system needs. The recent outbreaks of Bird Flu and Swine Flu have exposed the weaknesses of the contemporary health care systems in the face of the threats of global pandemics. Moreover, it is imperative to ensure the quality and outreach of the health care services at the highest standards. Hence, health care sector is increasingly utilising the power of information and communication technology (ICT). The emerging trend suggest that an informatics based integrated health care service network is not very far away. The National Health Service (NHS) of UK is rapidly advancing in this direction. It has a clear approach and the target is to integrate the health care services with ICT to ensure highest order of efficiency. “For 2008-2009, the main NHS spending figure was ?1.63 billion, but this does not cover all spending on ICT by the health service.” (Marsden, 2010). This proves that the urge to develop an integrated information technology (IT) based framework for the health care processes is significant. The main focus of this enormous fiscal spending is on NHS. “The ?1.63 billion spend by user base comes out with strategic health authorities bottom at ?27 million, primary care trusts ?682 million and far away in the lead, NHS trusts at ?915 million.” (Marsden, 2010) However, the spending patterns of the government have attracted criticisms as well. There are allegations that the overseas companies like “CSC, Fujitsu and Atos appear to have been the biggest beneficiaries of NHS IT spending, with the former raking in a whopping ?232m for its work during the period.” (Muncaster, 2010). Despite these issues, the government’s urge to better the existing NHS framework is very important in the context of health care and informatics integration. Now the important question is that how the IT enabled health care services of NHS are going to be designed. “The plan is attempting to move the NHS towards a single, central electronic care record for patients and to connect 30000 general practitioners to 300 hospitals, providing NHS CFH (Connecting for Health) is responsible for delivering this programme. In due course it is planned that patients will also have access to their records online through a service called HealthSpace. NHS CFH agency will create the world’s biggest civil information technology programme.” (White, 2010). To comprehend this sort of planning, review of the NHS structure becomes critical. “NHS is divided into two sections: primary and secondary care. Primary care is the first point of contact for most people and is delivered by a wide range of independent contractors, including GPs (General Physicians), dentists, pharmacists and optometrists. Secondary care is known as acute healthcare and can be either elective care or emergency care. Elective care means planned specialist medical care or surgery, usually following referral from a primary or community health professional such as a GP.” (National Health Service, 2009). Thus, it can be concluded that the NHS functionary is rather diversified. It consists of primary care trusts (control eighty percent of the total budget of NHS), acute trusts, care trusts, mental health trusts and agencies like NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) (National Health Service, 2009). Hence, the technical aspect of the ICT integration process will involve synchronisation of diverse agencies, offices and hospitals. Database management is crucial, since the knowledge handling systems will have to distribute, display, retrieve, organise, keep and acquire current knowledge. This would provide the clinicians, GPs, and researchers with updated information. The patients will be able to access and retrieve their personal health related information. And the nursing and support staff will be able to maintain the critical records more efficiently. Hence, technology based personalised service will be ensured (Information and Communication Technology Research Initiative. 2007).The networked computing within the NHS should attain the highest technological standards. Wireless networking can be very helpful in this regard. Implementation of IEEE 802.11g networks is a practical solution. Further, IEEE 802.11n technologies using Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) can increase the all important communication speeds. The high standard techniques will help the medical professionals to access and exploit the information systems anywhere and any time. Nation wide coordination can be based on cross platform database management systems (Mott and Leeming, 2000). Further in this context, it must be mentioned that the nursing professionals are very important for the development of a comprehensive programme for nursing informatics to make the community health related practices more effective and suitable to the dynamic needs of the 21st century situation. Hence, ICT training of the support staff, especially the nurses, is a crucial objective (Lundy and Jones, 2001). The history of the development of networked computing within the NHS should also be reviewed. Major developments in this field have occurred mainly during the last decade. In June 2002, the Department of Health published its new strategy for developing IT in the NHS. The programme aimed at procuring, developing and implementing a modern, integrated IT infrastructure. In April 2005, NHS CFH was established to bring in new computer services and systems. However, by the year 2009, serious security breaches were identified in the areas like email management, data encryption, etc. The arrangements for the security of information stored in the NHS CFH databases is thus being critically scrutinised and reinforced. (White, 2010) The political context of the evolution of ICT practices and policies deserves focus. During World War II (1939 - 1945), there was political pressure to research on computers and related technologies and obtain better techniques to facilitate the war efforts. For example, decryption of German codes entailed analysis and computation. By the mid 1960s, the US firms began to offer competition in the IT industry of UK. Hence, the government began to prop up the local industry under political directives of a conservative economy. However, by the 1970s, Japanese and US domination in the IT industry forced the government to abandon certain ambitious research and development programs, particularly those which were related to the development of mainframe computers. During the 1980s, the government finally abandoned its interventionist policies in regards of the IT industry (University of London, 2011). However, during the beginning of the 21st century, the government began to show interest in IT enabled and integrated public services. The contemporary IT integration within NHS can be regarded as a technical move in this direction with long term political objectives. Moreover, the effects of the instruments of wide spread IT implementations like Internet, online education, e-commerce, etc. is becoming more and more copious in the context of present international political scenario too (Mazarr, 2002). The legislative context of IT evolution in UK is critical to understand and evaluate any IT programme in the country, and ICT integration within NHS is no exception to this. The most important legislation regarding ICT implementation and information technology as a whole is the Computer Misuse Act 1990. However, in handling several legal cases, Privacy Act 1974 and Theft Act 1968 have been more helpful in dealing with the computer related crimes. Hence, new legislations to address the legal issues in relation to IT have come into existence. The Data Protection Act 1998 and Electronic Communications Act 2000 have been relatively recent and effective in controlling the cyber crimes. Electronic Communications Act can particularly help the patients and health care professionals to secure the confidentiality of the data and resources of their direct concern. Of late, the UK rules and regulations are being synchronised with the EU legislations regarding IT. (HM Government, 2011) Reference List HM Government. (2011). UK Public General Acts –Legislation.gov.uk. Available: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga. Last accessed 10 May, 2011. Information and Communication Technology Research Initiative. (2007). ICT. Available: http://www.ictri.port.ac.uk/overview.htm. Last accessed 10 May, 2011. Lundy, K.S. and Jones, S. (2001). Community Health Nursing: Caring for the Public’s Health. London: Jones and Bartlett Learning. Marsden, P. (2010). NHS IT spending revealed | g2 recruitment. Available: http://www.g2recruitment.com/node/963. Last accessed 10 May, 2011. Mazarr, M.J. (2002). Information Technology and World Politics. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Mott, J. and Leeming, A. (2000). Information and Communication Technology: For Advanced Level. London: Hodder Education. Muncaster, P. (2010). NHS IT spending tops ? 1.6 bn – IT News from v3.co.uk. Available: http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/1998490/nhs-it-spendin-topsgbp16bn. Last accessed 10 May, 2011. National Health Service. (2009). About the NHS. Available: http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/about/Pages/nhsstructure.aspx. Last accessed 10 May, 2011. University of London. (2011). Chapter 3: Looking Critically at ICT Policy Case Studies. Available: http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/current_students/programme_resources/lse/lse_pdf/further_units/110_info_tech_pol/110_ch3.pdf. Last accessed 10 May, 2011. White, T. (2010). The Doctor’s Handbook Part 2: Understanding the NHS (4th Ed.) Oxon: Radcliffe Publishing Ltd. Read More