مجله اطلاع رسانی پزشکی نوین
سال هشتم شماره 3 (پیاپی 21، پاییز 1401)

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led to many visits of patients to medical centers which has subsequently affected the performance evaluation of hospitals. One of the important non-financial performance measures is medical professional ethics. This study aims to evaluate the performance and rank the hospitals in Shiraz, Iran based on medical professional ethics affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Based on the balanced scorecard (BCS) method, the indicators were divided into four perspectives. Then, using the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method, the causality between the four BSC perspectives as well as the relative weights between the evaluation indicators were determined. The fuzzy data envelopment analysis (DEA) method was used to rank the performance of 37 hospitals. The DEA model ranked the decision-making units (DMUs) based on efficiency.

The DMUs (hospitals) 1, 3, 5, 8, 12, 13, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36 and 37 were efficient, while others were inefficient. 

The efficiency of hospitals in Shiraz is lower in learning and growth perspective than in other perspectives, and all hospitals are efficient in terms of customer perspective. This indicates that hospital managers pay less attention to learning and growth and more attention to the customer (patients) perspective during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To be up-to-date, the medical community must have the ability to communicate in the electronic environment and search for information resources. The present study aims to develop a questionnaire to assess the attitudes of Iranian medical students towards searching for information resources by formulating clinical questions and evaluate its validly and reliability.

This is a descriptive cross-sectional study. Participants were 190 interns from two educational hospitals in Tehran, Iran who were randomly selected. Exploratory factor analysis was used for assessing construct validity of the questionnaire in SPSS software, version 22.

The face validity and content validity of the 18-item questionnaire were assessed and confirmed by five experts. Based on the results of exploratory factor analysis, four factors of self-learning, learning motivation, information proficiency, and analysis were identified. The results of confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the four-factor model. The total reliability and the reliability for all factors were calculated using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient which were reported above 60%. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin coefficient and Bartlett test coefficient were 0.822 and 0.934, respectively (P=0.000).

The questionnaire has acceptable validity and reliability to be used by medical community in Iran and in future studies.

In Iran, the tariffs’ book of “Relative Values of Health Services” is the basis for calculating the costs of health services. Since orthopedic surgery is one of the largest fields of surgery in which most body tissues are involved, coding orthopedic procedures is more difficult. The present study aims to investigate the problems of coding orthopedic procedures using the Tariffs’ book.

This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in 2020 in university and non-university hospitals of Ahvaz, Iran. Participants were 73 people including orthopedic physicians, insurance experts, and revenue auditors who were selected by a census method. A questionnaire in two paper and online forms was used to collect information. The collected data were analyzed in SPSS software, version 22.

Among the problems of coding common in three groups, the biggest problem was related to the lack of an intelligent system for calculating the percentage of codes if they were multi-codes (78.75%). Regarding the adjustment codes, the highest level of familiarity was related to the code 51 about multiple surgeries (64.82%), and the lowest level was related to the code 20 about independent surgery ( 55.76 % ).

The development of an intelligent software for coding orthopedic procedures in Iran can facilitate the coding process and reduce the coding errors.

Access to quality information is essential for greater patient participation in treatment. This study aims to investigate the information sources of organ transplant recipients in Mashhad, Iran.

This analytical cross-sectional study was carried out from December 2017 to May 2018. Participants were 115 patients who received liver and kidney transplantation in Montaseriyeh Hospital in Mashhad. The research instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire with acceptable validity and test re-test reliability. Data analysis was performed in SPSS software, version 16.

The Mean age of the participants was 35.7±11 years. Most of them had the desire to receive more information about their disease (93%). The attending physician (Mean=8.91), Nurses (Mean=7.38), and other organ transplant patients (Mean=6.80) were the most popular sources of information for patients. The main reasons for using information sources were “having better understanding of the disease” (Mean=8.32), and “curiosity to learn more about the disease” (Mean=7.73). The most important problems in obtaining information were the lack of familiarity with medical terms (Mean=7.32) and information sources (Mean=7.16), and lack of access to information in Persian (Mean=7.14). Regarding the best type of educational method for information acquisition, verbal/face-to-face method got the highest score (Mean=9.05).

An appropriate and organized program should be developed for organ transplant patients to increase their health literacy as one of their undeniable rights.

Medical tourism as an active industry contributes to the sustainable development and economic growth of countries. This study aims to investigate the status of an ophthalmology hospital in Zahedan, Iran in attracting medical tourists.

This descriptive-analytical study was conducted in 2019 in Al-Zahra Ophthalmology Hospital in Zahedan. The study population consists of the administrative and clinical staff of this hospital. Using a census method, 75 people were selected. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire with acceptable validity and reliability (Cronbach’s alpha=0.83) was used to survey the attitudes of participants. Mean, standard deviation, and independent t-test were used to analyze the collected data in SPSS software, version 22. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.

The mean score for the possibility of attracting tourists by the hospital was 3.5±0.6. Among the study domains, general condition (3.7±0.7) and quality of equipment and infrastructure (3.7±0.6) obtained the highest score, while the geographical condition (2.8±0.9) had the lowest score.

The potential of the ophthalmology hospital in Zahedan in attracting medical tourist is at moderate level. Introduction of historical and scenic places as well as tourist attractions of the province on the website of the hospital, coordination with tourism companies to organize recreational tours according to the climate of the province, creating a food menu and improving the quality level of patients’ foods in accordance with their cultures, as well as improving the hospital’s website, both in terms of content and technical issues, and making it trilingual (Persian, English and Arabic) can be effective in improving the status of the hospital in attracting more medical tourists.

The speed and ease of using the Internet has made it one of the most important sources of finding health information for pregnant women. Examining the online health information seeking behaviors for each society requires the use of a standardized local tool. Therefore, this study aims to develop the Persian version of online health information seeking questionnaire for pregnant women in Iran.

This is a descriptive survey study. Participants were 357 pregnant women referred to Al-Zahra Hospital in Ahvaz, Iran. They completed the Persian version of online health information seeking questionnaire developed by Ahadzadeh and Sharif. The explanatory and confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modeling were used to assess the factorial structure of the questionnaire in SPSS software, version 26 and LISREL v. 8.80 applications.

The findings of factor analysis yielded six factors of user attitude, perceived ease of use, internet use intensity, health information about the baby, health information about the labor, and health information about pregnancy. These factors predicted 70% of the variance in online health information seeking behaviors, where the strongest predictor was the user attitude. The correlation between all factors was positive and significant. The results of the goodness of fit indices for all factors showed that the good fit of the 6-factor model. The Cronbach’s alpha for the overall scale was obtained 0.946, indicating its acceptable reliability.

The Persian version of online health information seeking questionnaire with acceptable validity and reliability can be used for pregnant women in Iran.

Considering the importance of implementing Internet of Thing (IoT) and blockchain technologies in the health sector, and the need to assess the feasibility of each project before implementation, this study aims to assess feasibility of implementing blockchain and IoT technologies in hospitals affiliated to Tabriz University of Medical Sciences.

This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2020. Participants were 30 personnel of hospitals in Tabriz who were familiar with the concepts of blockchain and IoT technologies. The data collection tool was a 42-item questionnaire with five dimensions of managerial, technical, economic, educational and cultural infrastructure. SPSS v. 16 software was used to analyze the collected data. 

From the 42 components, 26 were perceived as very important. Some of which were security of data stored on the database, installation costs, managers’ inadequate understanding of information systems, the occurrence of the phenomenon of resistance to change in system administrators, providers’ willingness to acquire new skills, and structural changes necessary to accept the implementation.

The technical infrastructure has the highest importance for implementing blockchain and IoT technologies in hospitals of Tabriz, followed by managerial and educational infrastructure. Attention to these factors is essential for the implementation of these technologies.

People with information anorexia severely limit the acquisition and use of information and lose the opportunity to receive new information, and often rely on a few limited sources of information. This study aims to investigate the information anorexia of medical students in Hamedan University of Medical Sciences (HUMS).

The is qualitative study based on grounded theory conducted in 2019. By using purposive and snowball sampling method, 27 samples were selected for this study including faculty members of knowledge and information sciences, faculty members of psychology, and students in general medicine (second-year or higher) in HUMS. In-depth semi-structured interviews were used to collect data. The coding process (Open, axial, and selective coding) was conducted after interviews and the main categories were extracted. Data analysis was carried out in MAXQDA version 12 software.

The causal factors of information anorexia were the students’ physiological/cognitive/motivational status and skills. Intervening factors were the higher education system, students’ field of study, and society. Contextual factors were the characteristics of information, characteristics of information sources, and the issues affected by the information age. 

Since information anorexia in medical students can lead to harmful social, scientific and economic consequences, it is important to identify and reduce it by promoting the students’ skills such as information literacy, personal information management, and critical thinking.