Bouchaib Bahli, Ryerson University, Canada

The introduction of information technology and telecommunications (ITC) in the health care sector has brought so many benefits to the health operators, managers, and patients. However, the increasing use and the application of ITC to the management and delivery of health care well known as e-health has been associated with several e-health risks that need to be examined. In this paper we point out several shortcomings of current risk conceptualization and operationalization, particularly they do not address the integration of a variety of risk components, which are crucial for capturing the essence of e-health risks. To fill this gap and drawing on risk analysis perspective we present and discuss a formal framework for e-health cloud computing project risks that captures potential scenarios, their likelihood and, the associated negative consequences. E-health risks were identified in the literature and a cluster analysis was used to classify different risks into several risk domains according to the developed e-health risk framework. Results show several domains including privacy, security, safety, liability, operational, project and business e-health risks. Implications for researchers and managers are also discussed.

e-health, e-health risks, risk assessment, health care management