IT Impact on UAE Healthcare Research Plan

This document outlines a research plan to study the impact of information technology on healthcare services in the UAE. The research employs a hybrid approach, combining literature review with primary data collection through a questionnaire distributed to 100 healthcare professionals with at le...Read More

Research Plan
Impact of Information Technology on Health care services in UAE
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Abstract
Study Title: To study the impact of the information technology on the health care services in
UAE
Study Design: The research is conducted through review of the previous literatures written
by the other researchers. After that, a primary research will be conducted to understand the
impact. The hypotheses derived from the literature review will be tested through primary
research.
Setting and Study Participants: There will be 100 participants for the study. The participants
will be from the health care sector and will be working in the sector for at least ten years. The
questionnaire prepared will be sent to them through email.
Planned and Sample Size: The sample size will be 100 respondents.
Planned Study Period: The study will be conducted in one month.
Aim and Objectives: The aim of the study is to understand the impact of the implementation
of information technology in the health care services.
Outcome Measures: It is expected that the research will be able to clearly state how the
information technology is impacting the health care services. Moreover, expected ways is
expected to be found to implement in the healthcare sector in regard to information
technology to improve the situation further.

Table of Contents
Abstract....................................................................................................................................1
Research Background..............................................................................................................3
Aim...........................................................................................................................................4
Objectives................................................................................................................................4
Justification..............................................................................................................................5
Hypothesis...............................................................................................................................5
Research Question..................................................................................................................5
Study Design............................................................................................................................6
Subjects, Population Selection & Sample Methods.................................................................6
Measurements & Data Collection Instruments.........................................................................7
Data Collection Procedures.....................................................................................................7
Data Processing and Analysis.................................................................................................7
Results.....................................................................................................................................8
Expected Results.....................................................................................................................8
Resources Required................................................................................................................8
Permission...............................................................................................................................8
Project Milestones & Timetable................................................................................................8
References.............................................................................................................................10

Research Background
The paper is concerned with understanding the impact of the information technology in the
healthcare services that are provided in the various hospitals in the UAE. Though there is no
doubt that most of the hospitals and associated service providers in the country have
inclined towards the information technology substantially, yet it would be beneficial to
understand that to what extent the inclusion of information technology is impacting the heatlh
care services (Berkowitz, 2010). There are various researches that were written prior to the
advancements of the information technology into the healthcare services. There are also
most of the researchers who have written about the information technology and the
healthcare services. However, most of them are either from different country or are from
different time period (Chee, 2007). Therefore, the researcher of this study felt the need to
conduct a recent study in this field and particularly considering the situation of the UAE.
Information technology was mostly preferred by the individuals who were just excited about
this attractive area and it was not included seriously in core sectors (Chau and hu, 2001). In
most cases, the practitioners used to assume this element to ridiculously costly and helpful
in limited manner (Bhattacherjee and Hikmet, 2007). Still one can find various hospitals that
are in the belief that the information technology is not ready for complete deployment and
reliance (Hu et al, 1999). Here it can be stated that there are two views presented by the
researcher through their research studies (Poon et al, 2006). However, these studies are bit
old and there can be the likeliness that the orientation of the practitioners towards the
technology has changed since then (Devaraj and Kholi, 2003). Moreover, it would be a good
way to start the study and understand whether the practitioners believe that the information
technology is impacting the health care services in the positive or negative manner.
Some of the research studies concerning the information technology and the healthcare
services state that it is important for the researcher to consider the right vision for the IT and

then considering it implementing in the hospitals (Sittig and Singh, 2010). With the help of
the right vision for the hospital services, the services will be bound take the benefit of the
information technology in the days to come. Here, it is quite clear that the predictions and
research have been done in different geographic and demographic context than the focus of
this study (UAE). Therefore, it would be interesting to know the orientation of the health
services in UAE towards information technology and the impact of the IT on the health
services.
Aim
The aim of the study is to understand the impact of the information technology on the health
care services of the United Arab Emirate.
Objectives
Given below are the research objectives to be considered for this research based on the
research aim defined above:
- To understand the orientation of the health care professionals towards the
information technology.
o This objective will be attained by going through various research papers and
reinforcing the hypothesis through the primary research.
- To understand whether the health care services require information technology or it
is self-sufficient.
o This objective will be attained in the same manner as previous one. The
literature review will help in forming right hypotheses regarding this objective
and it will be assessed using the primary research.
- To understand the impact of the information technology on the health care services.

o This objective will be attained using the fulfilment of the previous two
objectives, literature reviews, developing hypothesis and then conducting the
primary research.
- To understand the emergence of information technology into the health care system
o This objective will be briefly archival in nature as limited development in
information technology will be explored in the form of literature review to
understand this objective.
Justification
The rationale behind the conducting the research is that it will help the academicians and
professionals in understand where the health care services are heading towards with the use
of the information technology. It will help the professionals in understanding the viability of
the information technology for the health care services.
Hypothesis and Research Question
Mentioned below are the research questions that have been derived from the study so far:
- What is the orientation of the health care professionals towards the information
technology?
- Whether health care services require information technology or it is self-sufficient?
- What is the impact of the information technology on the health care services?
- How the information technology has emerged into the health care sector?
Given below are the research hypotheses that have been derived using brief literature
review:
H1: Health care professionals are positive towards the adoption of information technology.
H2: Health care services are nearly difficult to be thought of without the assistance of
information technology.

H3: Information technology has positive impact on the growth of the health care services
Study Design
The study will follow the hybrid research method. That is, it will be the combination of the
primary and the secondary research. The secondary research refers to the utilization of
secondary sources to conduct the study and reach certain conclusion. The sources of the
secondary data are newspapers, magazines, research papers of other researchers, data
from the public and private agencies, and others. The primary research is concerned with
the direct data collection from the field (Skerville and Wood-harper, 2016). In this study,
literature review has been done where the papers of other researchers have been studied.
After that the primary research will be conducted with the help of questionnaire distribution to
some research participants.
Subjects, Population Selection & Sample Methods
The subjects chosen for the study are the medical professionals who have been in this field
for quite some time. The minimum time period of their duty in this sector has been taken as
ten years. The individuals with below ten years of industry experience have not been
considered for the study. The reason is that the researcher assumes that the individuals
spending greater number of time in industry is likely to share more fruitful information in
comparison to someone who joined the industry few years ago. The entire population of
health care services have been considered and the sample has been drawn for the study.
There will be hundred individuals whom the questionnaire will be sent for study. These
individuals will be professionals and has come in contact with the information technology
frequently (frequently refers to at least once in a week). The method selected for the survey
is convenience sampling (Ferber, 1977). The convenience sampling has been selected as
the method because it is expected to save time and money of the researcher which is short.

The researcher is expected to finish the research within one month’s time and therefore
convenience sampling method has been chosen to stay away from any hassle.
Measurements & Data Collection Instruments
The measurements and data collection instruments that will be used in the research paper
be from statistics. In the initial phase of the data collection, descriptive statistics will be
applied to combine the data into human readable form. After the descriptive statistics
correlation will be studied among the variables that will be derived from the study. The data
collection will be done using the online methodology.
Given below are the set of dependent and independent variables consider under this study:
1. Satisfaction level of medical practitioners (assessed through the questionnaire filled
by them)
2. Impact of information technology (assessed through the questionnaire filled by them)
3. Orientation of health care professionals (assessed through the questionnaire filled by
them)
The impact of information technology is dependent variables and the rest are independent
variables.
Data Collection Procedures
The data collection procedures will be through the online survey tools. The survey monkey
will be used to distribute the link to the respondents who will fill the form and will click submit
to finish the survey. There will be no inclusion of email communication to conduct the survey.
The email will be used once while sending the survey link. After that, call will be made to the
individuals to fill the form and submit.

Data Processing and Analysis
The data will be processed using the SPSS software. It is from IBM. The SPSS software
version 16.0 will be used for study as the latest version is not available with the researcher
and procurement will cost handsome amount which is not feasible. However, there will not
be any likely impact on the result as there are no major differences in function between both
the versions. Statistical tools such descriptive and correlation analysis will be applied to
understand the study.
Results
The results will be presented using the data tables obtained from the SPSS table. The data
will be converted into human readable graphs in the SPSS itself and then it will be borrowed
to the result section of the research paper.
Expected Results
It is expected that the information technology might have positive impact on the health
services. Though the research is focused towards UAE health services, therefore universal
applicability of the results cannot be warranted.
Resources Required
There are no major resources required to conduct the study except access to various
research papers related to this topic, SPSS software package, email and phone numbers of
respondents, and enough time.,
Permission
The approval to take the study further will be taken from the professor. The acceptance of
this proposal by the professor will be assumed as the allowance to the researcher to take the
study further.

Project Milestones & Timetable
There are some milestones defined for this research. They are:
- Research topic, aim and objectives are defined.
- Associated literatures are reviewed to further modify the research hypotheses.
- Respondents are identified for the survey
- Questionnaire is distributed
- Response collected
- Analysed using appropriate statistical tools
- Discussions complete on the obtained results
- Appropriate conclusive remarks made.
Given below is the time table for this research. The duration for each activity has been
written and each activity follows the other and no activity takes place simultaneously:
Activities Duration (day)
Select Research Topic 0.2
Identify Research Aim and Objectives 0.2
Identify Research Rationale and background 0.5
Conduct literature review 5
Identify research methodology 0.5
Identify questions to be asked 0.5
Identify respondents 0.2
Distribute questionnaire 0.5
Collect responses 10
Collate data 0.2
Store data in multiple places 0.2
Analyse the data through SPSS 2
Identify results 3
Conduct discussion 3
Give conclusive remarks 2
Complete Research Paper write up 5

References
Berkowitz, E.N., 2010. Essentials of health care marketing. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Chee, H.L., 2007. Medical tourism in Malaysia: international movement of healthcare
consumers and the commodification of healthcare.
Bhattacherjee, A. and Hikmet, N., 2007. Physicians' resistance toward healthcare
information technology: a theoretical model and empirical test. European Journal of
Information Systems, 16(6), pp.725-737.
Poon, E.G., Jha, A.K., Christino, M., Honour, M.M., Fernandopulle, R., Middleton, B.,
Newhouse, J., Leape, L., Bates, D.W., Blumenthal, D. and Kaushal, R., 2006. Assessing the
level of healthcare information technology adoption in the United States: a snapshot. BMC
Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 6(1), p.1.
Chau, P.Y. and Hu, P.J.H., 2001. Information technology acceptance by individual
professionals: A model comparison approach. Decision sciences, 32(4), pp.699-719.
Sittig, D.F. and Singh, H., 2010. A new sociotechnical model for studying health information
technology in complex adaptive healthcare systems. Quality and Safety in Health
Care, 19(Suppl 3), pp.i68-i74.
Hu, P.J., Chau, P.Y., Sheng, O.R.L. and Tam, K.Y., 1999. Examining the technology
acceptance model using physician acceptance of telemedicine technology. Journal of
management information systems, 16(2), pp.91-112.
Devaraj, S. and Kohli, R., 2003. Performance impacts of information technology: Is actual
usage the missing link?. Management science, 49(3), pp.273-289.

Skerville, R.L. and Wood-Harper, A.T., 2016. A critical perspective on action research as a
method for information systems research. In Enacting Research Methods in Information
Systems: Volume 2 (pp. 169-190). Springer International Publishing.
Ferber, R., 1977. Research by convenience. Journal of Consumer Research, 4(1), pp.57-58