ICT Skill Proficiency of Healthcare Professionals in Western Region of Sri Lanka

Abstract

E-health facilitate availability of information online for patients and doctors and reduction of paperwork, such as records and files, which swallow a large space of medical centers. Further, this help to improve the country‘s healthcare services and make them better and affordable. Healthcare staffs are change agents in healthcare sector. They are key drivers who play crucial role in ICT integration in healthcare. The aim of this study is to examine the ICT proficiency of healthcare staff in western region of Sri Lanka. A sample of 100 healthcare staff was assessed for their ICT Proficiency using a Likert type questionnaire (Strongly Disagree (SD), disagree (D), Neutral (N), Agree (A), Strongly Agree (SA)). There were 60 females (60%) participants and 40 were male (40%). The average number of years of computer use was 8.73 years (SD=5.722). A list of hardware (i.e., desktop Computer, laptops, multimedia, digital cameras, printers, scanners, and Barcode/RFID reader) was provided to the participants for them to assess their level of proficiency. Most respondents can use hardware related to ICT (SA – 2%, A - 55.6%, N - 29.7%) but they have low maintenance proficiency (SD – 21%, D - 53.5%, N – 16.5%). Staffs reach to moderate proficiency in using office packages (SA – 23.6%, A - 57%, N – 18%) and web-based functions (SA – 6%, A – 36%, N – 55%). They depict low proficiency (SD – 96%) for System Analyst and Design, Software development skills, Networking Skills. According to the result healthcare staff can work with ICT integrated systems. But they are not in position to maintain computerized system in networking environment. Most of staff do not have any idea about analysis / design/ development/configuration of computerized systems relevant to the healthcare. There is higher necessity of having either well train or well experience/qualified ICT staff for successfully integration of ICT in to the Healthcare sector.