USER PARTICIPATION IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF HOSPITAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND FACTORS AFFECTING IT

Due to the large volume of the data generated in hospitals، it is essential to use hospital information system (HIS) in efficiently handling them. One of the major factors in the HIS is user participation that leads to correctly predicted factors and this fact also increase their commitment to the development of HIS. This study aimed to survey participation rate of users in different stages of HIS development and identified factors affecting it. This descriptive-cross sectional study was performed on 140 users (including physicians، nurses، medical laboratorists، radiologists، HIM and IT staffs) from Urmia University Hospitals in 2013. The data were collected using a self-structured questionnaire whose reliability had been confirmed by specialists as well as its validity by internal consistency method (r =0. 86). The collected data were analyzed by SPSS software using descriptive statistics and analytic al statistics (t-test and chi-square). Correlation analysis showed that a meaningful correlation existed between job and organizational change barriers (p =0. 003)، and also between the history and attitudinal-behavioral barriers (p =0. 006). The highest participation rate of users in the four-stage development of the HIS was related to implementation phase (2. 88) and the lowest participation rate was related to analysis (1. 23). The test results showed that none of the stages of development (analysis، design، implementation، and evaluation) had satisfactory user participation (P < 0. 05). The most important factors in increasing user participation included established teamwork from end-users and the support of top managers from HIS development. According to the survey results، it seems necessary that health care administrators have a detailed plan for user participation that identify the real needs prior to the development and purchase of HIS، and predict ways to increase users’ commitment and motivations to develop maintain and upgrade the system.