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Can information technology really boost performance in resource-constrained emergency healthcare organisations? A critical realist perspective

03 October 2017
12:30 - 13:30

HSRC Seminar Series on Innovation and Development in collaboration with the Centre for Science, Technology & Innovation Indicators

invitation

Presenter: Yasser Buchana, Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators, HSRC

Chair: Dr Moses Sithole, Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators, HSRC

Date: 3 October 2017        
Time: 
12h30 – 13h30 
Venues: Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town

Information and communication technologies (ICT) have been widely promoted as a mechanism for poverty eradication, wealth creation and well-being. While the term ‘development’ remains contentious, the use of ICT has become ubiquitous within healthcare organisations in developing countries. However, the typically telecentric approach of early ICT4D thinking and practice has thrown up as yet unanswered questions of sustainability, scalability, and evaluation.

Due to high levels of poverty and the resource constraints this creates, many people in developing countries remain excluded from the full benefits ICT can offer public healthcare organisations. In these resource-constrained contexts, emergency medical services (EMS) organisations face particular challenges when it comes to the use of ICT as tool for performance enhancement. Since the provision of emergency services to sick and injured patients involves intensive use of ICT, an investigation into the relationship between ICT use and organisational performance, in the context of resource-constrained EMS organisations, is therefore essential. This seminar will explore the micro-level ICT mechanisms that can enable EMS organisations in resource-constrained settings to achieve their performance outcomes. It will focus on how these micro-level mechanisms actually work, and what can be done to improve them.

The HSRC seminar series is funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST). The views and opinions expressed therein as well as findings and statements of the seminar series do not necessarily represent the views of the DST.

Cape Town : HSRC, 116-118 Merchant House, Buitengracht Street, Cape Town. Contact: Carmen August ,Tel (021) 4668004, Fax (021) 461 0299 or e-mail: caugust@hsrc.ac.za
Durban:  The Atrium, 5th Floor, 430 Peter Mokaba Ridge, Berea, 4001 , Contact: Ridhwaan Khan, Tel (031) 242 5400, cell: 083 788 2786 or email: RKhan@hsrc.ac.za, or Hlengiwe Zulu at e-mail HZulu@hsrc.ac.za
Pretoria: HSRC Video Conference, 1st floor HSRC Library Human Sciences Research Council, 134 Pretorius Street, Pretoria. Arlene Grossberg, Tel: (012) 302 2811 or e-mail: acgrossberg@hsrc.ac.za