Technical requirements framework of hospital information systems: design and evaluation

BACKGROUND: Implementing the health information system (HIS) is more complex and costly than implementing other information systems. The present study was conducted to design and evaluate technical requirements for the HIS. METHODS: The present study was conducted in 2016 by determining technical requirements for the HIS using the Delphi technique and then evaluating this system using a checklist based on the approved requirements. RESULTS: The first part of the study designed a 73-item final list of technical requirements for the HIS in four domains, i.e. communication service, system architecture, security service and system response time. The evaluation results obtained in the second part showed that communication service was met in 63.8% of the HIS programs, system architecture in 65.5%, security service in 72.4% and system response time in 76.3%. CONCLUSIONS: A technical evaluation tool was designed and used to select and evaluate the HIS. The evaluation results suggested the study HIS was poorer in terms of communication service and system architecture than in the other two dimensions.