Towards interoperable e-Health system in Tanzania: analysis and evaluation of the current security trends and big data sharing dynamics
Marseline Michael Mtey -, Mussa Ally Dida · International Journal of Advanced Technology and Engineering Exploration · 2019
With the evolution of ICT and computing, various industries and business sectors have found better and sophisticated ways of service provisioning through technology integration.Steadily, some old ways of manual paper work are being replaced by upgraded electronic systems or the legacy systems by modern technologies.The integration results to various eservices with great value for service delivery becomes at the fingertips of consumers [1].Migrating to e-technology also improves and simplifies online information and data sharing process by breaching geographic barriers among individuals [2].Ecommerce, e-government, e-learning and e-health are few examples of online services that are simplified.One can easily do shopping, reserve tickets, do banking services, and even process legal contracts electronically.Similarly, health services are provided electronically as e-health in which early detection, reporting and response of health-related issues can be done easily [3]. *Author for correspondenceIn e-health, patients' diagnosis, prescriptions and monitoring can be done whenever they are with the application of a single or integrated system.According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Information and Communication Technology (ICT) improves health provision by accelerating the data sharing provided that there is a unified standard and protocols to be followed [4,5].In an information sharing domain, communication can be through Machine-to-Machine (M2M) or any other form of exchanging data through wired or wireless medium with or without human intervention [6,7].The communication can be within a single site or multiple sites depending on the mode of system integration.Integrated systems can leverage the advantages of being linked together, making data sharing easier.The formed unified or interoperable system has simplified information sharing process since multisite, multi-national and multi-branch organizations can work as a single organization.Various levels exist in interoperability for ensuring that data sharing is possible.They range from technical, semantic and organizational interoperability as shown in Figure 1 [8].The technical (syntactic) interoperability deals