Economics of eHealth

This paper provides an outline of key economic and financial questions to pursue in informing in-country eHealth policy and strategy investments. E- and mHealth can help overcome core health obstacles in poor countries such as access, information and trained staff. However, there are very few resources available to help policymakers in these countries prioritize e- and mHealth investments based on the full range of financial costs and benefits, focusing on the initiatives with the greatest impact, ability to scale up, and sustainability.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are potentially powerful instruments to strengthen health systems, with innovations ranging from electronic health records to transmission of clinical data. These technologies show great promise in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs) whose health systems face severe financial, infrastructural, technical and human resource constraints. This is evident in the growing number of health service providers beginning to focus on mobile technologies to improve access and quality of health services.

At the same time, there is a growing debate about whether the touted potential of ICT benefits and savings can be actualized on a large scale, both in OECD countries and LMICs. Over a decade of efforts to implement ICTs in healthcare demonstrate notable successes, but also costly failures. Furthermore, despite a growing global interest in e‐ and mHealth, relatively little is known about the economics of eHealth. In fact, a recent paper notes that the failure to demonstrate the value of eHealth is one of the principal challenges to achieving widespread adoption of high‐performing ICT initiatives. However, the lack of hard evidence to support eHealth investments should be seen in the context of a rapidly developing field; other major economic sectors have embraced modern IT to improve productivity and effectiveness, and it is likely that the health sector can also share in many of these benefits. There is, however, a real need for economic analysis that can guide public and private investment decisions.

Given the increasing number of mHealth trials and level of interest in e‐ and mHealth, this is an opportune time to review the available data on the costs and benefits of e‐ and mHealth and suggest a roadmap for future research. This paper is intended to provide an outline of key economic and financial questions to pursue in the development of scenarios for in‐country  Health policy and strategy investments.

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