Safety use of hospital information systems: a preliminary investigation

Abstract

One of the strategies to enhance patient safety due to medical errors is through the use of Hospital Information Systems (HIS). However, previous studies have revealed that its usage introduces new class of errors called technology-induced errors. These errors occurred when HIS is poorly designed, implemented or used. The antecedents of HIS related errors originated from various factors. It is essential to ascertain the root cause for safe use of HIS in order to reduce the technology-induced errors. Hence, this preliminary study is aimed to explore and identify the antecedents towards safety use of HIS. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at a teaching university hospital, a government hospital, and the Malaysian Ministry of Health from May till July 2014. Six respondents who are experienced HIS users, and also involved in the development of HIS were individually interviewed. Six themes emerged from the semi-structured interviews. This study adds knowledge to HIS research by considering sociotechnical aspect of safety HIS usage.