Assessing the Ability of Hospital Information Systems Regarding the General Requirements in Iran

Hospital information system is an information technology tool that covers all diagnostic, therapeutic, administrative, financial and research functions and operations. This study aimed to assess the ability of various hospital information systems in Iran based on the general requirements of the country.
This study was a functional and descriptive study. The research population included hospital information systems of vendors of hospitals’ softwares. A researcher-made checklist was designed to collect the data. This checklist was designed using the standards of the Ministry of Health, data from Iranian companies; as well as, the list of requirements for hospital information systems, WHO, CCHIT, and scientific articles. The content validity of the checklist was assessed by experts. The test-retest procedure was used to determine the stability of the checklist. Data were collected using the checklist by observations and interviewing with hospitals` informatics staff. Data were analyzed in the SPSS 19. Those cases that were in harmony with the checklist were analyzed using the descriptive statistics (percentage, mean, and standard deviation).
The highest performance scores were obtained for the Tarasheh Hooshmand (330), Rayavaran (317) and Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (292). Regarding subcategories, Tarasheh Hooshmand had the highest score (98.4%) and Teb va Rayaneh had the lowest score (14.71%).
Since the number of applicants who wish to use the hospital information system has been increased, and there are shortcomings in some modules of the hospital information systems designed by the companies, there is a need to review and revise hospital information systems especially using benchmarking.