Javed, Areeba (2026) Digital Health Transformation and Telemedicine Adoption: A Comparative Systematic Review of the UK and Pakistan. Masters thesis, York St John.

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Abstract

Telemedicine adoption varies markedly between healthcare systems of differing digital maturity, yet comparative evidence connecting a developed and a developing health system remains scarce. This dissertation critically examines the process of digital health transformation and telemedicine adoption in the United Kingdom and Pakistan through a comparative systematic literature review, addressing three gaps in the existing literature: the absence of direct UK-Pakistan comparison, the dominance of individual-level technology-acceptance models over system-level outcome evidence, and the lack of assessment of which implementation lessons are structurally transferable between contexts. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, a systematic search of Scopus and Web of Science identified 374 records, from which 32 studies met the eligibility criteria and were thematically analysed using Braun and Clarke's six-stage framework, informed by the Technology Acceptance Model, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, and Diffusion of Innovation theory. The synthesis shows that telemedicine adoption in both countries is shaped by overlapping technological, organisational, individual, socioeconomic, and regulatory factors, but that these factors interact and compound one another rather than operating independently, and that their relative importance differs by clinical domain and health system. The United Kingdom and Pakistan were found to face structurally different implementation problems rather than simply differing in degree: the UK's residual challenges centre on equity and the clinical validity of remote assessment within an already governance-mature system, while Pakistan's centre on regulatory absence and the interaction of infrastructural and organisational constraints within a privately led, pandemic-accelerated sector. A structured transferability analysis distinguishes UK practices that are procedurally transferable to Pakistan, such as formative evaluation and co-design, from those bound to funding and governance models unlikely to be replicated in the short term. The dissertation concludes with evidence-based, context-sensitive recommendations for strengthening digital health transformation in developing healthcare systems, without assuming that success within a mature, publicly funded system can be directly transplanted into a nascent, privately led one.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Status:	Published
Subjects:	R Medicine > R Medicine (General) T Technology > T Technology (General)
School/Department:	London Campus
URI:	https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/16328

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