Information Communication Technology in Public Health: The Role of Systems Modelling

The National Health Service is being re-engineered. One of the components is that public health medicine needs to be delivered differently but effectively. It has been proposed that this should be done via managed public health networks (MPHNs). Underpinning this re-engineering there is an increasing role for ICT (information and communication technologies) and previous work suggests that most of the communication over the networks would be predominantly electronic. The development of MPHNs involves much complexity. This study aims to demonstrate the value of systems modelling when implementing and evaluating ICT in public health by applying it to their development. Our objectives are first to propose system models and methodologies, which can be used to understand the critical elements and their inter-relationships within the MPHN. Second, we wanted to apply the information derived from the models to propose a prototype model and to produce a system-based implementation and evaluation plan to realize the network. These objectives were achieved by combining soft system methodology with soft systems diagrams to propose relevant systems models. We conclude that systems modelling facilitates the understanding, implementation and evaluation of ICT in healthcare.