E-Health Management Services in Supporting Empowerment

Abstract: The Web technology provides healthcare providers the ability to broaden their services beyond the usual practices, and thus provides a particular advantageous environment to achieve complex e-health goals. This paper discusses how a Web 2.0 application will help healthcare provider to extend and enhance their services by involving and empowering their customers.Web 2.0 referes to the next generations of Web technology that empowers users to generate contents over Internet. The Web 2.0 also refers to the Web as a platform to perform any task online. The Web 2.0 allows customers to have greater control of information flow from interactions between healthcare providers with its customers and among customers themselves. The study employed quantitative methods to depict expectations of customers in Indonesia towards healthcare services that can offer empowerment and social media and sharing. The questionnaires were fairly distributed to the groups of healthcare staffs and customers (patients) who regularly visit healthcare centres. The survey revealed that features of Web 2.0 in e-health services such as consultation online, sharing in social networks, empowerment in detailing personal health records are highly appreciated by customers. Regardless of the limitations of the survey, the public has responded with a great support for the capabilities of Web 2.0 listed from the questionnaires. The findings provide initial ideas and recommendation for a future direction of prototype of social networks in e-health services.