Determining Turkey's level of e-health readiness

Developments in information, telecommunications and network technologies have led to the emergence of revolutionary new paradigms in the healthcare sector as well as in other fields. The importance of the concept of e-health, which is defined as the use of information and communication technologies in health services, is increasing day by day. In this context, information is needed to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of e-health applications. In this research, the issues to be considered while implementing rapidly developing technological applications in the health sector have been a matter of curiosity. The model of the research is exploratory sequential mixed method research, which is one of the mixed method designs. In exploratory sequential mixed method research, a qualitative → quantitative research design is created. In the first stage of this research, what it means for a country to be ready for e-health applications and which areas should be ready for e-health applications were discussed in the qualitative research process. In the qualitative research phase, first of all, semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts in the field of e-health. The data obtained in these interviews were analyzed in the MAXQDA 2020 program and the relevant areas of readiness for e-health applications and the themes and codes belonging to these areas were discovered by thematic analysis method. Considering this information, it has been discovered that e-health readiness consists of social e-health readiness, e-health readiness of health institutions, structural e-health readiness and software e-health readiness. Draft scales that can evaluate the e-health readiness of these discovered areas were developed in the qualitative research methods stage of the research. The second stage of the research, the quantitative method research stage, was designed based on the findings obtained in the qualitative research stage. Another element of interest in the research is to determine how much qualitative research findings will support quantitative research findings. In this context, the e-health readiness draft scales discovered in the qualitative method stage were applied on appropriate samples and the structural validity of the scales was examined with exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. In this context, social e-health readiness consists oh the sub-dimensions of cultural, technology and infrastructure, educational, attitude, confidentiality and reliability; the e-health readiness of health institutions consists of sub-dimensions of acceptance and readiness for use, self-efficacy, technology and infrastructure preparation, and structural preparation is supported by both qualitative and quantitative research findings. The third area covered in the research is the structural e-health readiness level of a country in general. The scale that can evaluate this area has been developed based on the information in the literature and previous studies. The evaluation of structural e-health readiness was carried out based on information and communication technology data, economic data and health data. Based on the findings of the qualitative research phase of the research, e-health readiness should also be evaluated in terms of software. However, due to the time and cost limitations of the research, the relevant field was excluded from the scope of the research. In the third stage of the research, Turkey's e-health readiness was tried to be examined in social, health institutions and structural areas by using e-health readiness scales, whose validity and reliability were proven in the first two stages of the research. Keywords: E-Health, Information and Communication Technologies, Mixed Method Research, Exploratory Sequence Mixed Method Research.