Hospital characteristics associated with highly automated and usable clinical information systems in Texas, United States

BACKGROUND: A hospital's clinical information system may require a specific environment in which to flourish. This environment is not yet well defined. We examined whether specific hospital characteristics are associated with highly automated and usable clinical information systems. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional survey of 125 urban hospitals in Texas, United States using the Clinical Information Technology Assessment Tool (CITAT), which measures a hospital's level of automation based on physician interactions with the information system. Physician responses were used to calculate a series of CITAT scores: automation and usability scores, four automation sub-domain scores, and an overall clinical information technology (CIT) score. A multivariable regression analysis was used to examine the relation between hospital characteristics and CITAT scores. RESULTS: We received a sufficient number of physician responses at 69 hospitals (55% response rate). Teaching hospitals, hospitals with higher IT operating expenses (>$1 million annually), IT capital expenses (>$75,000 annually) and hospitals with larger IT staff (≥ 10 full-time staff) had higher automation scores than hospitals that did not meet these criteria (p < 0.05 in all cases). These findings held after adjustment for bed size, total margin, and ownership (p < 0.05 in all cases). There were few significant associations between the hospital characteristics tested in this study and usability scores. CONCLUSION: Academic affiliation and larger IT operating, capital, and staff budgets are associated with more highly automated clinical information systems.