Development of hospital information systems: user participation and factors affecting it

Given the large volume of data generated in hospitals, in order to efficiently management them; using hospital information system (HIS) is critical. User participation is one of the major factors in the success of HIS that in turn leads Information needs and processes to be correctly predicted and also their commitment to the development of HIS to be augmented. The purpose of this study is to investigate the participation rate of users in different stages of HIS development as well as to identify the factors affecting it.

This is a descriptive-cross sectional study which was inducted in 2014. The study population consists of 140 HIS users (from different types of job including physicians, nurses, laboratory, radiology and HIM staffs) from Teaching Hospitals Affiliated to Urmia University of Medical Sciences. Data were collected using a self-structured questionnaire which was estimated as both reliable and valid. The data were analyzed by SPSS software descriptive statistics and analytical statistics (t-test and chi-square).

The highest participation rate of users in the four-stage development of the HIS was related to the implementation phase (2.88) and the lowest participation rate was related to analysis (1.23). The test results showed that the rate of user participation was not satisfactory in none of the stages of development (P< 0.05). The most important factors in increasing user participation include established teamwork from end-users and the support of top managers from HIS development.

According to the results obtained from the study, it seems that health care administrators must have a detailed plan for user participation prior to the development and purchase of HIS so that they identify the real needs as well as increase their commitment and motivations to develop, maintain and upgrade the system, and in this way, the success of the system will be assured.