The Impact of Health Information Technology on Hospital Performance: A Systematic Integrative Literature Review

Abstract

<strong>Objective:</strong> To review, categorise, and synthesise findings from literature on health information technology (HIT) functionalities, HIT use, and the impact of HIT on hospital performance. <strong>Materials and Methods:</strong> We conducted a systematic integrative literature review based on a compre-hensive database search. To organise, categorise and synthesise the ex-isting literature, we adopted the affordance actualization theory. To align the literature with our research framework, we used four categories: 1) the functionalities of HIT and how these functionalities are measured; 2) use and immediate outcomes of HIT functionalities; 3) different perfor-mance indicators and how HIT functionalities affect them; and 4) what hospital characteristics influence the outcome of hospital performance. <strong>Results:</strong> Fifty-two studies were included. We identified four types of HIT. Only ten studies (19.2%) define the use of HIT by explicitly meas-uring the use rate of HIT. We identified five dimensions of hospital per-formance indicators. Every dimension showed mixed results; however, in general, HIT has a positive impact on mortality and patient readmis-sions. We found several hospital characteristics that may affect the rela-tionship between HIT and hospital-level outcomes. <strong>Discussion:</strong> Further efforts should focus on embedded research on HIT functionalities, use and effects of HIT implementations with more performance indicators and adjusted for hospital characteristics. <strong>Conclusion:</strong> The proposed framework could help hospitals and researchers make decisions regard-ing the functionalities, use and effects of HIT implementation in hospi-tals. Given our research outcomes, we suggest future research opportuni-ties to improve understanding of how HIT affects hospital performance.<br /> <div> <br /> </div>