Introduction
Hospital Information System (HIS) is a crucial mechanism for systematizing internal documentation and communication among departments. For example, this software collects all patients’ medical history and doctor visits. Some more modern HIS systems may also alert doctors about allergies and recommend certain treatment. Implementing the HIS system in healthcare facilities requires assembling many IT experts with experience in constructing similar systems. In addition, healthcare leaders and end-users are also important actors in this process.
Role of Healthcare Leaders in the Implementation of HIS
Healthcare leaders have a significant impact on the tone, values, and approaches of the organization. During the implementation of this project, healthcare leaders may define the nature of the change, resolve issues, monitor the initiative’s progress, and encourage others for hard work and creativity (Wager et al., 2021). Wager et al. (2021) also note that the leadership committee should be chaired by a senior professional leader because such leaders evoke respect among employees. In addition, these leaders should be interested in learning detailed knowledge about IT technologies and their impact on better organizational practices.
It is beneficial to consider the role of healthcare leaders in the specific example of dissemination of vision throughout the organization. Firstly, leaders should be skillful in identifying and summarizing the vision so that it will be easy to comprehend and implement. Here the big role plays the trust of professionals in the vision proposed by the leader. Secondly, leaders should do their best to spread the vision among all the employees responsible for HIS implementation. It may take one thousand emails and hundreds of face-to-face communications to clarify the vision. Such communication presumes receiving feedback or criticism from staff members, so it is normal to correct the vision to satisfy the perceptions of the staff.
Role of End-Users in Functionality and Usability
It is important to involve end-users in the process of HIS creation. End-users mean the group of people who will use the final product. In this case, these people are doctors and hospital administrators. These real-life practitioners may contribute to software development by suggesting some crucial aspects of hospitals’ everyday functioning and explaining what they consider inconvenient in HIS. Without their participation, IT developers may rely only on theoretical considerations of how hospitals work but cannot know contextual differences. IT specialists need to pay more attention to end-users: as Martikainen et al. (2020) point out, 86% of the end-users answered that software vendors ignored their development ideas. However, such ignorance badly influences the management of HIS development.
HIS is Saudi Arabia
The academic literature is interested in the implementation strategies of HIS in Saudi Arabia. For example, Alsalman et al. (2021) considered the adoption of HIS in the eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia, specifically in Al-Khobar, Dammam, Al-Qatif, and Dhahran. The hospitals in these regions tend to adopt a comprehensive toolkit with wide functionality. This functionality includes electronic clinical documentation, result viewing, decision support, and bar coding (Alsalman et al., 2021). Another crucial fact is that the overwhelming majority of hospitals purchased HIS whether they did it within an organization or requested from the Ministry of Health (Alsalman et al., 2021). Nevertheless, there is a need to increase the number of HISs developed in house with the active participation of end-users.
Conclusion
To conclude, the development of Hospital Information Systems is a crucial requirement of the 21 century. Academic research shows that implementing these systems enhances the quality of patient care and reduces clinical errors (Alsalman et al., 2021). This essay emphasizes the participation of healthcare leaders and end-users in the implementation process. While the integral role of leaders is to disseminate vision, end-users may positively influence the contextualization of HIS.
References
Alsalman, D., Alumran, A., Alrayes, S., Althumairi, A., Alrawiai, S., Alakrawi, Z., Hariri, B., & Alanzi, T. (2021). Implementation status of health information systems in hospitals in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. Informatics in Medicine Unlocked, 22, 1-7. Web.
Martikainen, S., Kaipio, J., & Lääveri, T. (2020). End-user participation in health information systems (HIS) development: Physicians’ and nurses’ experiences. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 137, 1-11. Web.
Wager, K. A., Lee, F. W., & Glaser, J. P. (2021). Health care information systems: A practical approach for health care management. John Wiley & Sons.