An importance-performance analysis of hospital information system attributes: A nurses' perspective

Health workers have numerous concerns about hospital IS (HIS) usage. Addressing these concerns requires understanding the system attributes most important to their satisfaction and productivity. Following a recent HIS implementation, our objective was to identify priorities for managerial intervention based on user evaluations of the performance of the HIS attributes as well as the relative importance of these attributes to user satisfaction and productivity outcomes.

We collected data along a set of attributes representing system quality, data quality, information quality, and service quality from 154 nurse users. Their quantitative responses were analysed using the partial least squares approach followed by an importance-performance analysis. Qualitative responses were analysed using thematic analysis to triangulate and supplement the quantitative findings.

Two system quality attributes (responsiveness and ease of learning), one information quality attribute (detail), one service quality attribute (sufficient support), and three data quality attributes (records complete, accurate and never missing) were identified as high priorities for intervention.

Our application of importance-performance analysis is unique in HIS evaluation and we have illustrated its utility for identifying those system attributes for which underperformance is not acceptable to users and therefore should be high priorities for intervention.