Effect of practice management softwares among physicians of developing countries with special reference to Indian...

Currently, many cheaper "practice management software" (PMS) are available in developing countries including India; despite their availability and benefits, its penetration and usage vary from low to moderate level, justifying the importance of this study area.

First preferred reporting items for systematic-review and meta-analysis (2009) guidelines were considered; followed by an extensive systematic-review of available studies in literature related to developing countries, on key search term from main abstracting databases: PubMed, EMBASE, EBSCO, BIO-MED Central, Cochrane Library, world CAT-library till 15 June 2014; where any kind of article whether published or unpublished, in any sort or form or any language indicating the software usage were included. Thereafter, meta-analysis on Indian studies revealing the magnitude of usage in Indian scenario by Open Meta-(analyst) software using binary random effects (REs) model was done. Studies from developed countries were excluded in our study.

Of 57 studies included in a systematic review from developing countries, only 4 Indian studies were found eligible for meta-analysis. RE model revealed although not-significant results (total participants = 243,526; range: 100-226,228, overall odds ratio = 2.85, 95% confidence interval = P < 0.05 and tests for heterogeneity: Q [df = 3] = 0.8 Het. P = 0.85). The overall magnitude of usage of PMS on Indian physicians practice was however found between 10% and 45%.

Although variable and nonsignificant effect of usage of PM software on practice of physicians in developing countries like India was found; there is a need to recognize the hidden potential of this system. Hence, more in-depth research in future needs to be done, in order to find a real impact of this system.