Data Quality Evaluation of Hospital Information System: A User Perspective Study

To offer high-quality healthcare services, individuals need to utilize high-quality information. The present study aims to evaluate the data quality in the hospital information system (HIS) at a selected educational hospital.

This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted in 2018. The statistical population consisted of 202 users of the hospital HIS at Amir-al-momenin Hospital in Zabol.  The respondents were selected using stratified random sampling. Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire. Then, they were analyzed through SPSS-20 and descriptive statistics.

It was found that 45 of the respondents stated in the comprehensibility of the hospital information, while 76 considered the hospital information not very understandable. Moreover, 34.7% believed that the hospital information would be rapidly accessible when needed. The average scores of the dimensions were found to be 5-8.5, and there were significant, positive relationships between all the dimensions under the study (P-value<0.05).

Findings suggest that only a small number of staff had complete information on the HIS and associated subsystems. Other respondents lacked sufficient awareness of the HIS or were unaware of its existence. The authors suggest that the needs of users be evaluated before designing a HIS system in order to ensure that it will meet those needs. Despite the use of HIS subsystems in all the units of the hospital under study, respondents had insufficient information on how these subsystems could be used.