Maturity Assessment of Hospital Information Systems Based on Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM)— Private Hospital Cases in Iran

Abstract

Introduction: Today, information technology is considered as an important national development principle in each country which is applied in different fields. Health care as a whole and the hospitals could be regarded as a field and organizations with most remarkable IT applications respectively. Although different benchmarks and frameworks have been developed to assess different aspects of Hospital Information Systems (HIS s ) by various researchers, there is not any suitable reference model yet to benchmark HIS in the world. Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) has been currently presented and is globally well-known to benchmark the rate of HIS utilization in the hospitals. Notwithstanding, this model has not been introduced in Iran so far. Methods: This research was carried out based on an applied descriptive method in three private hospitals of Isfahan—one of the most important provinces of Iran—in the year 2015. The purpose of this study was to investigate IT utilization stage in three selected private hospitals. Conclusion: The findings revealed that HIS is not at the center of concern in studied hospitals and is in the first maturity stage in accordance with EMRAM . However, hospital managers are enforced and under the pressure of different beneficiaries including insurance companies to improve their HIS. Therefore, it could be concluded that these types of hospitals are still far away from desirable conditions and need to enhance their IT utilization stage significantly.