Conceptualization of the Factors Affecting the Quality of Mobile Health Services of Active SMEs in Healthcare System

Development of new technologies, particularly information technology (IT) has a great impact on the health care area and the quality of life style. IT advancement and integration of the internet and digital technologies in mobile health (M-Health) platform has made the health care delivery, affordable and accessible around the world through mobile phones. Although the m-Health has many benefits, it causes increasing concerns about improvement of the service quality in this field. Improvement of the M-Health service quality has attracted much attention in the academic and practitioner communities in recent years. However, empirical research in this area is not sufficiently adequate. This paper deals with identifying the factors affecting on m-health service quality which is required by health clients in small and medium-sized enterprises in Iran. This study has been conducted via a qualitative approach which includes semi-structured interviews with 12 professionals and experts of the information technology and e-health fields. Results have been demonstrated based on the encoding method. Furthermore, the findings have been compared with other studies. As a result of this study, a new conceptual model for mhealth service quality has been developed. Finally, it is argued that the results of this study are applicable in organizations, which involve in e-health field to improve the quality of mobile services for health.