Impact of cybersecurity measures on improving institutional governance and digitalization for sustainable healthcare

• Published in: PloS one 2022-11, Vol.17 (11), p.e0274550-e0274550
• Main Authors: Abbas, Hafiz Syed Mohsin, Qaisar, Zahid Hussain, Ali, Ghulam, Alturise, Fahad, Alkhalifah, Tamim
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Banking; Computer security; Corruption; Cybercrime; Cybersecurity; Cyberterrorism; Developing countries; Digitization; Earth Sciences; Ecology and Environmental Sciences; Electronic government; Empirical analysis; Estimation; Ethics; Government information technology services; Health care; Health care reform; Health services; Human capital; Information management; Innovations; International organizations; Internet; Internet crime; LDCs; Malware; Management; Medicine and Health Sciences; People and Places; Physical Sciences; Policy making; Prevention; Public health; Public services; Quality of service; Safety and security measures; Social development; Social sciences; Sustainability; Sustainable development
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0274550

Digitalization in healthcare through advanced methods, tools, and the Internet are prominent social development factors. However, hackers and malpractices through cybercrimes made this digitalization worrisome for policymakers. In this study, the role of E-Government Development as a proxy for digitalization and corruption prevalence has been analyzed in Healthcare sustainability in developing and underdeveloped countries of Asia from 2015 to 2021. Moreover, a moderator role of Cybersecurity measures has also been estimated on EGDI, CRP, and HS through the two-step system GMM estimation. The results show that EGDI and CRP control measures significantly improved HS in Asia. Furthermore, by deploying strong and effective Cybersecurity measures, Asia’s digitalization and institutional practices are considerably enhanced, which also has an incremental impact on HS and ethical values. This present study added a novel contribution to existing digitalization and public health services literature and empirical analysis by comprehensively applying advanced econometric estimation. The study concludes that cybersecurity measures significantly improved healthcare digitalization and controlled the institutional malfunctioning in Asia. This study gives insight into how cybersecurity measures enhance the service quality and promote institutional quality of the health sector in Asia, which will help draft sustainable policy decisions and ethical values in the coming years.