What is a HISS? Hospital Information Support System

A HISS is a Hospital Information Support System and the idea is that it is primarily there to support clinical activity not to provide management information. When the concept of a HISS first emerged it was seen as a very large system where all hospital departments shared one computer system and that is the model used by the first few HISS sites. As the Health Service has changed and the difficulties of replacing all the computer systems in a hospital with one large system have been appreciated, so the concept of HISS has developed. We now talk about an incremental approach to HISS. This means looking at the present systems and deciding which ones should be retained and 'interfaced' with the new system. No system is the best for every department and this approach allowing 'foreign' systems to be attached to the main system (usually centred on the Patient Administrative System) does provide a good fit with the needs of the department. This does not need to be implemented immediately but can be introduced at the end of the life of an existing system, thus protecting the past investment in systems.