Effects of Health Information Systems in Iran: a Systematic Review

Evaluation of the effects of health information systems enable health care policy and decisions makers to better invest on and utilize health information applications. The objective of this systematic review is to consolidate existing evidence from published studies on the effect of health information systems in Iran. The aim of this study is systematic review of articles about effects of health information systems in Iran. In this study all papers relevant to the research objective were retrieved from SID, Magira, Irandoc, Medlib and Iran Medex databases until July 2013, and finally 18 out of 861 retrieved articles were identified as relevant and reviewed by the authors. This study shows that approximately more than half of the studies indicated the positive effects of these systems on costs and less than half of them had negative on costs. The results also demonstrate other major effects of these systems: decreased medication errors, increased accuracy and timeliness of activities, increased accessibility of information and improved quality of services. The results of this study provide a good insights concerning the effects of health information systems for policymakers and researchers. This study mainly highlighted the positive effects of these systems on health care procedures