Health Care Information System

The need for evaluation
Health care organizations-long time uses of computers-are considering many new computer based products in the hope of increasing efficiency, reducing costs, and improving patient care. These products include a growing number of medical computer applications in which health care providers interact directly with the computer. These applications are referred to generally as medical or clinical information systems. Medical information systems involved computer-stored database containing patient information to support medical order entry, result reporting, decision support systems, clinical reminders, and other health care applications. In some health care organizations, a comprehensive systems coordinates patient care activities by linking computer terminals in patient care areas to all departments through a central or integrated information system. Other organizations use smaller separate systems tahat link patient care areas to only one department such as the laboratory, radiology, or  the pharmacy. These systems provide communication network between departments as well as storage and retrieval of medical information. Other computerized database or expert systems may serve a single department or group of practitioners.

At the same time, the current emphasis on cost-effectiveness in health care is creating new pressures on organizations to justify expenditures through detailed evaluations of the impacts of new informations systems. Although  implementation success depends heavily on the integration of the computer systems into a complex organizational setting, professionals who develop, implement, and evaluate health care computer systems have few guidelines for designing effective evaluation strategies and selecting appropriate methods to examine the outcomes of systems use in health care organizations. To ensure that newly adopted systems accomplish their intended purpose, vendors and purchasers alike need to develop detailed plans prior to system implementation for ongoing implementation and post-instalation evaluation to examine the use and long-term impacts ofthese systems.
Evaluating the impact of computer based medical information systems requires not only an understanding of computer technology but also an understanding of the social and behavioral processes that affect and are affected by the introduction of the technology into the practice setting. As technological developments result in the widespread use of computer in health care, the social and behavioral sciences can provide an important perspective to guide the establishment of research agendas and the conduct of policy-relevant investigations.