HIS-Monitor: An approach to assess the quality of
information processing in hospitals
Elske Ammenwertha,∗, Frauke Ehlersa, Bernhard Hirschb, Gordon Gratl b
a Institute for Health Information Systems, UMIT, University for Health Sciences,
Medical Informatics and Technology, Hall in Tyrol, Austria
b ITH, Information Technology for Healthcare, Innsbruck, Austria
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 30 December 2005
Received in revised form
27 March 2006
Accepted 2 May 2006
Keywords:
Healthcare information systems
Quality
Information management
Hospital information systems
Evaluation
Questionnaire
a b s t r a c t
Objectives: Hospital information systems (HIS) are a substantial quality and cost factor for
hospitals. Systematic monitoring of HIS quality is an important task; however, this task is
often seen to be insufficiently supported. To support systematic HIS monitoring, we developed
HIS-Monitor, comprising about 107 questions, focusing on how a hospital information
system does efficiently support clinical and administrative tasks.
Methods: The structure of HIS-Monitor consists of a matrix, crossing HIS quality criteria on
one axis with a list of process steps within patient care on the other axis. HIS-Monitor was
developed based on several pretests and was now tested in a larger feasibility study with
102 participants.
Results: HIS-Monitor intends to describe strengths and weaknesses of information processing
in a hospital. Results of the feasibility study show that HIS-Monitor was able to highlight
certain HIS problems such as insufficiently supported cross-departmental communication,
legibility of drug orders and other paper-based documents, and overall time needed for
documentation. We discuss feasibility of HIS-Monitor and the reliability and validity of the
results.
Conclusions: Further refinement and more formal validation of HIS-Monitor are planned.
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