How can information and communication technology improve healthcare inequalities and healthcare inequity? The concept of context driven care

Advances in medicine have improved health and healthcare for many around the world. The challenge is achieving the best outcomes of health via healthcare delivery to every individual. Healthcare inequalities exist within a country and between countries. Health information technology (HIT) has provided a mean to deliver equal access to healthcare services re-gardless of social context and physical location. In order to achieve better health outcomes for every individual, socio-cultural factors, such as literacy and social context need to consider. This paper argues that HIT while im-proves healthcare inequalities by providing access, might worsen healthcare inequity. In order to improve healthcare inequity using HIT, this paper ar-gues that we need to consider patients and context, and hence the concept of context driven care. To improve healthcare inequity, we need to conceptual-ly consider the patient’s view and methodologically consider design meth-ods that achieve participatory outcomes.