A New Ten-layer ICT Model for Health Communication in Fatal Disease Management

Health communication is a process of persuading good health by disseminating messages through communication channels that are aimed to improve patients' confidence and promote optimistic behaviour. Traditional communication tools lacked a direct communication approach for effective dissemination of health messages to the patients. New Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have the potential to break that barrier but are scantily used in health communication as examined by the authors, qualitatively. There is an evolving need for better utilization of ICT resources which are direct, cost effective, time-saving, and highly persuasive in pursuit of quality healthcare delivery. Therefore this research proposes a ten-layer ICT model converging advanced Mobile and Internet interventions, to disseminate health messages for patients suffering from fatal diseases. Using breast cancer as an instance, a communication strategy is exemplified using the ten-layer model. This model benefits healthcare professionals and patients with messages or information that will be timely, instantaneously, decidedly reachable and highly reliable for obtaining positive patient outcomes.