Iran's National Health Information Network: Developing an Architectural Model

This study was conducted to develop a model for the architecture of Iran's National Health Information Network (NHIN).  In this study, based on the literature review, the necessary information was obtained about the concept of the architecture of the NHIN; then, documents related to NHIN architecture in the United States and the United Kingdom were collected. In the second stage, according to the information obtained in the previous stage and considering the structure of Iran's health system, an architectural model for the NHIN of Iran was presented. Then, the Delphi technique was used to validate the proposed architecture. The proposed architecture of the NHIN of Iran includes three dimensions of nodes or network members, member's interfaces, and finally, communication with the environment (confidentiality and security). 90% of the experts evaluated each dimension of the proposed architecture on an acceptable scale. In general, the proposed architecture was evaluated by 90% of experts on an acceptable scale. In proposing the architecture of Iran's NHIN, attention was paid to the experiences of the two leading countries, approaches to NHIN design, and the structure of Iran's health system. However, the proposed architecture is critical and can be used for the countries whose health system structure is almost similar to Iran.