Title:	A PROPOSED IMPACT ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK ON TV WHITESPACES TECHNOLOGIES IN RURAL HEALTHCARE: A NAMIBIAN CASE
Author(s):	Ronald Karon, Mqhele Dlodlo andNomusa Dlodlo
ISBN:	978-989-8533-85-2
Editors:	Piet Kommers, Pascal Ravesteijn, Guido Ongena and Pedro Isaías
Year:	2019
Edition:	Single
Keywords:	TV Whitespaces, Health Information Systems, Community Based Networks
Type:	Full Paper
First Page:	271
Last Page:	276
Language:	English
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Paper Abstract:	The introduction of TV Whitespaces (TVWS) technology has enabled the use of local TV bands by wireless devices for broadband internet access. Increasingly it has become important to provide internet access to rural communities. Africa has only seen a 7% internet penetration. Namibia like some other African countries has rural communities that are spread out sparsely throughout the country with vast distances between most communities. Despite access to modern telecommunications infrastructure in the country, access to broadband connections in rural areas is limited. Supporting healthcare services by using ICT for quality healthcare delivery is a growing need in rural and remote communities. Considering the above, the problem is that telehealth services cannot be adequately supported in rural or remote healthcare because of limited internet access. Furthermore, no framework exists to assess the impact of TVWS technologies in Namibian rural healthcare. Therefore, this paper proposes to address the gap of limited internet access for telehealth in Namibian rural communities, by introducing TVWS technologies in rural healthcare towards developing an impact assessment framework. The selected research paradigm for this study will be the Pragmatic paradigm. The research design will consist of a mixed-method approach, namely quantitative and qualitative. The study will consist of two phases. The first phase of the research will be an experimental approach (Positivist) which supports methods of quantitative data collection. Aspects of Human-Computer Interactions towards an impact assessment framework, will be the second phase of the study. Data gathering of a qualitative nature (Interpretivism) from participants of the public healthcare institution, would be enabled by this approach. A rural health clinic in Namibia would be used as a case study. Literature sampling, experiments, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews will be used as data collection instruments for this research study. For the analysis of data, the first phase of the study, the implemented TVWS network and the telehealth application would be tested for robustness, usefulness and user-friendliness. The testing would be guided by benchmarks such as availability, reliability, scalability and stability. Grounded theory would be selected as the guiding theory for the second part of the study, which would lead to the development of an impact assessment framework. Preliminary findings from literature sampling indicated that the largest TVWS trial project was deployed in Namibia in 2013. The project used Adaptrum’s white spaces radios with connection distances between 8 km and 12 km. The throughput that was achieved ranged between 5 Mbps to 10 Mbps. The findings suggest that a telehealth application could be tested on a TVWS network that could contribute towards the development of an impact assessment framework.
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