Implementation Difficulties of Hospital Information Systems

This study looks for potential sources of implementation difficulties of hospital information system in a private hospital in Turkey and provides recommendations to avoid these difficulties. Increasing cost of patient care delivery and the difficulties faced during the improvement studies of data quality and data access have increased the pressure for the use of information systems in healthcare organizations. However, due to complex workflows of hospitals, usage of information systems in healthcare brought some problems along with it. In this study, in order to find out the possible implementation difficulties, a survey was conducted in a private hospital in Turkey which was just in the stage of implementing a hospital information system. Techniques of interview, observation and questionnaire were applied for data collection. Data was analyzed by using descriptive and factor analyses. The results of these analyses showed that the potential sources of hospital information system implementation difficulties were related to organizational issues, end user profile, integration of different systems, inconsistency among different workflows of different departments and training issues whereas there was no major implementation problem related to software, hardware, planning, support, security and solution provider. Under the guidance of literature survey and the findings of the study, recommendations for achieving a successful, sufficient and efficient hospital information system implementation phase are given in terms of end user contribution, business process reengineering, hardware planning, integration of information systems, training and support.