OSSAM CHOHAN, SITI FALINDAH PADLEE, SYAHIDA ABDULLAH, BAKHTIAR MUHAMMAD, LAILA BIBI
DOI: https://doi.org/Background: E-health technologies offer major opportunities to improve access, efficiency, and quality of healthcare in low- and middle-income countries, but their success depends on readiness across technological, organizational, and social domains. Pakistan—with growing mobile and internet penetration but fragmented health systems—lacks a standardized, country-specific tool to assess e-health readiness.
Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted across PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar for studies up to 2024. Following PRISMA-guided screening and eligibility checks, 38 studies were retained for thematic synthesis. Extracted constructs were mapped against established readiness frameworks (Khoja et al., 2007; Ntseme et al., 2021; Yusif et al., 2017).
Results: Five dominant readiness constructs emerged consistently: ICT readiness, infrastructure readiness, patient readiness, digital literacy, and trust. Most existing studies emphasize technical and organizational factors, while few explicitly model behavioral mediators. To address this gap, we propose a conceptual E-Health Readiness Framework for Pakistan that links these structural readiness constructs to Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) from the Technology Acceptance Model, which then influence attitude and behavioral intention toward e-health adoption.
Conclusion: The proposed framework provides a country-specific roadmap to assess and strengthen e-health readiness in Pakistan by bridging structural enablers with behavioral adoption pathways. Empirical validation across diverse healthcare settings and development of standardized measurement instruments are recommended to operationalize the framework and inform policy interventions.
