Analysis of factors inhibiting the customer engagement of eHealth in India: Modeling the barriers using ISM-Fuzzy MICMAC analysis.

INTRODUCTION: The current study aims to evaluate and measure the relationship between the customer engagement barriers influencing the adoption of eHealth in India. Previous studies have shown that low levels of engagement can lead to worse health outcomes, so this study is an expanded version of those findings to highlight those challenges. METHODOLOGY: For this, the study followed three phases of research: factor identification through a review of the literature; expert opinion for selecting key and pertinent factors for the study; and application of interpretive structural modelling approach to capture the proper association between various factors. Using fuzzy-MICMAC analysis, the factors were divided into independent, dependent, autonomous and linkage categories. RESULTS: A model is created in this study that shows the relationship between different barriers that aid the Indian healthcare industry in better implementation and also Indian citizens in better adoption of eHealth services. According to the research and derived model, some of the biggest obstacles in the eHealth are need of product portfolio, Lack of Customer support and Low first call resolution rate. CONCLUSION: This study contributes to the body of knowledge by offering novel perspective into the types of hierarchical relationships that exist among barriers. These insights will be valuable to academicians and practitioners interested in India's healthcare market and its strategic expansion.

Non-vesicular Lipid Transport Machinery in Trichomonas vaginalis: Novel Drug Targets against Trichomoniasis.

Eukaryotic cells have separate membrane-enclosed organelles with distinct biochemical identities and specialized functions. The unique characteristics of each organelle are regulated by asymmetric distribution and intra-cellular trafficking of two important biomolecules, proteins and lipids. Non-vesicular lipid transport facilitated by lipid transfer proteins performs essential roles in intracellular lipid trafficking and homeostasis, while vesicular transport regulates protein trafficking. Comparative analysis of lipid transport machinery in protists could help us to understand the basis of parasitism and insight into eukaryotic evolution. Trichomonas vaginalis, a parasitic protist, greatly depends on receptor-ligand-mediated signaling pathways for cellular differentiation, nutrient uptake, secretion of virulence factors, and pathogenesis. Lipids, despite being key molecules of signaling cascades, have mechanisms of intracellular transport that are largely unexplored in T. vaginalis. We have identified a repertoire of seventeen potential lipid transfer protein (LTP) homologs in T. vaginalis based on a domain-based search on TrichDB (genome database of Trichomonas) coupled with bioinformatics analyses, which indicates the presence of well-organized lipid transport machinery in this parasite. We emphasized here their evolutionary uniqueness and conservation and discussed their potential implications for parasite biology in regard to future therapeutic targets against Trichomoniasis.

A fuzzy analytic hierarchy process-based analysis for prioritization of barriers to the adoption of eHealth in India.

INTRODUCTION: eHealth is essential for revolutionising the health sector in India. eHealth enhances patient-centred healthcare by providing digital solutions to improve the quality of care, communication between doctors and patients; enhances the management of health data and integration of healthcare systems. Despite the importance of eHealth and the National Digital Health Mission in India, the adoption of eHealth faces several barriers. The objective of this research is to identify and classify the factors that act as barriers to the adoption of eHealth in India. METHODOLOGY: These barriers were ranked using a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, which is a multi-criteria decision-making approach. Thirty-seven barriers were identified and grouped into eight categories named customer, regulatory, technical, organizational, practitioner, marketing, administrative, and economic. RESULTS: The barriers under the marketing category are the most significant obstacles to the deployment of eHealth in India, which includes promotion, customer engagement, and customer loyalty. Customer-related barriers were identified as the second most important barriers to eHealth, which included health consciousness, literacy in eHealth, lack of motivational value for elderly people, unclear benefits, learning new technology, lack of trust, and less knowledge of health experts, and cultural ethical challenges. Following these, the other barrier categories were administrative, organizational, regulatory, and practitioner-related. The economic barrier was identified to be the least important among all the barrier categories. CONCLUSION: This is among the first studies to look into the reported impediments to eHealth adoption in India in-depth and categorize and prioritize them. This study contributes to our understanding of eHealth obstacle identification, categorization, and prioritisation, and explains why, even though eHealth was first described in India in 2005 and globally in 1999, there are still barriers to eHealth adoption in India.