The maturity assessment of hospital information systems based on Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model – A comparison between private and governmental hospitals

Today, Information Technology (IT) is considered as one of the major national development principles in each country which is applied in different fields. One of the most important fields in which IT is applied is health care and hospitals are similarly considered as most substantial organizations that use IT vastly. Although, different benchmarks and frameworks were developed to assess different aspects of Hospital Information Systems (HIS), still there was no reference model to benchmark HIS in the world until very recently. Eventually, Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) which is globally a well-known model to benchmark the rate of HIS utilization in the hospitals, were emerged. Nevertheless, this model has not been introduced in majority of developing and even some developed countries in the world yet. In this study, EMRAM is applied to benchmark both governmental and private hospitals in Iran. This research is based on an applied descriptive method to assess five governmental and three private hospitals in Isfahan in 2015. This province is one of the most important provinces of Iran. The results reveal that HIS is not at the center of concern in these hospitals and are in the first and second maturity stages in accordance with EMRAM. Therefore, these types of hospitals are far away from desirable conditions and stages. Yet, the immaturity of HISs in private hospitals is more observable. This situation including the pressure of different beneficiaries such as insurance companies, has forced hospital managers to develop and enhance their HISs, especially in governmental hospitals.