Defining and Characterizing the Landscape of E-Health

There has been a surge of electronic health (e-health) technologies encompassing a range of services available to various stakeholders within the healthcare system in both developed and developing countries. As technology has evolved, the features and functionalities offered by e-health technologies have grown dramatically, leading to a proliferation of advanced technical solutions. As a result of this increased focus, various definitions for what constitutes the term e-health have emerged in the literature. This lack of consensus is further inhibited by a dearth of research documenting the characteristics (i.e., features and functionalities) of such e-health technologies. The authors propose to define and characterize the landscape of e-health technologies from an information systems (IS) perspective in this chapter. By examining existing literature and reviewing the market place, this study reveals that there is a need to integrate the various features and functions of e-health technologies, thereby arguing that integration and interoperability is important for the growth of e-health.