Identifying the needs of the healthcare system and society to design responsive education for health information technology

Following the implementation of the transformation plan in the higher education of Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MOHME) and the moving toward Mission-Driven universities in medical sciences, the mission for "Development of health information technology (HIT) knowledge" was assigned to the Kashan University of Medical Sciences (KAUMS) in seven Land-use planning. Considering the focus of given mission on curriculum revisions and emphasis on the social accountable medical education, this study was conducted to identify the needs of the society (patients and health system) for developing a social accountable education in the field of HIT.

This study was conducted in three phases: 1) identifying and extracting the needs of the society by the members of the mission committee at KAUMS 2) holding a meeting with the members of the "examination, evaluation and planning board" of HIT at MOHME 3) implementing the Delphi technique among HIT professionals at the teaching hospitals. To collect research data, a questionnaire was used; the acceptance or rejection of each identified needs, was judged based on the frequency of HIT professionals' favorable opinions. Identified needs with less than 50% favorable opinions were removed, between 50% and 74% were revised and more than 75% were approved.

Of the five identified needs, including "management of information related to insurance and denial", "management of hospital statistics and information", "classification and reporting of hospital morbidity and mortality", "computer and its applications" and "information technology in "Healthcare system" the most favorable area based on the HIT professionals opinion was "Information management related to insurance and denial" (93.4). The two suggested needs by HIT professionals in the first phase, "health information management in prevention, aging and public health" and "ambulatory care information classification and coding" were removed since rated less than 50% agreement score.

According to the opinions of HIT professionals, the needs of the society in the field of HIT at the bachelor's degree should be focused on the needs of hospitals and acute care settings. Therefore, other identified social needs such as prevention and aging information management and health information management in ambulatory care should be considered in postgraduates’ degree in the field of HIT.