Key considerations for ensuring high quality HIPAA compliant e-health

‘E-health’, is currently one if not the most dramatic developments in the healthcare environment. Initiatives in this area impact a broad spectrum of the nation’s individuals and entities, including but not limited to patients, providers, consumers, hospitals, managed care organisations, pharmaceutical entities and pharmaceutical benefit management companies, ancillary service providers, medical equipment manufacturers and suppliers, and consultants. E-health, while exciting and promising, also presents new challenges, particularly in regard to acceptable standards, choice of technologies, overcoming traditional jurisdictional boundaries, up-front investment, privacy and confidentiality as well as information integrity and quality. In order to address all these issues healthcare organisations require a framework that brings together these key challenges into a cohesive whole so that appropriate standards and protocols can be developed and then implemented to ensure that the value proposition for e-health can be realised. This paper serves to develop and present such an integrative framework. © 2005 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.