Hospital Information Systems Implementation: An Evaluation of Critical Success Factors in Northeast of Iran

INTRODUCTION: Implementation of hospital information systems (HIS) is considered as a difficult and sensitive task in terms of its scope and its mission to collect identity-related, demographic, clinical and managerial data of patients in an integrative manner as well as due to the changes it makes in users’ working practices. The purpose of the present study was to investigate users’ views and attitudes towards the key elements of successful implementation of HIS.

METHODOLOGY: This applied study was conducted in a descriptive cross-sectional form. To this end, 248 users of HIS at teaching hospitals in the city of Mashhad (Northeast of Iran) were selected through stratified random sampling, and then a questionnaire was distributed to collect the required data. After collecting the questionnaires, data was entered into the SPSS software and the findings were examined by using descriptive statistics (frequency) and then illustrated in tables and diagrams.

RESULTS: Functional factors, meeting users’ needs and ease of use had the highest prominence in successful implementation of a HIS. This mean that HIS considering demands of users is the first critical success factors in HIS implementation.

CONCLUSION: The analysis of the research findings demonstrated that three groups including system users, technical operators (professionals) and managers have important role in implementation of HIS. Furthermore, successful implementation of HIS was required to be performed through a formulated program with specified time, costs, and manpower in which the employment and participation of various users of the system had been precisely defined. In this respect, financial supports and presence of hospital management team in meetings and decisions was also of utmost importance.