Improving the use of the electronic health record using an online documentation manual and its acceptance through technology acceptance model

To a human it's very complicated to access all the information correctly without a technology to help. The healthcare information systems (HIS) preserves all the information related to a patient and the hospital. In order to be able to share between different HIS, there must be a platform to integrate and share all the information. In Hospital Center of Porto (CHP), the platform used is the AIDA-PCE. This article proposes to make a prototype of an online documentation manual for the platform used and evaluate its acceptance, through a questionnaire with 28 questions. This acceptance was guided by the constructs of the technology acceptance model and the Delphi method. Through bench-marking was chosen the most appropriate tool for creating this manual. The purpose is to enumerate potential improvements to the platform, to reduce and optimize the time of its use and to increase the acceptance of this manual by the professionals.This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2019

Interoperability between health information systems in the hospital context

The information systems had a positive effect on the health service by reducing the physical documentation, more available information to monitor the patient and safer data storage. On the other hand, there was a negative impact due to an increase of diverse systems operating which demanded more training and support to hospitals structure aligned with the lack of interoperability standards that promote the patient´s data sharing between them. Therefore, this dissertation focused on analysing the existent interoperability between information systems in the Portuguese health service, determine the key aspects to establish communication among them, and the consequences it has on the healthcare professional´s routines. Interviews were conducted with healthcare professionals and hospital suppliers to collect their experience on interacting with this technology, their opinion about the influence it has on the hospital´s routine, and the potential measures to improve the current situation. This research concluded that the lack of interoperability and an unfriendly interface generates a complex use of the systems with a high number of clicks and slower navigation to execute the tasks that can cause loss of time for healthcare professionals. Besides, the public hospital demonstrated to have a higher number of IS suppliers and lower levels of integration between systems compared with private hospitals. Lastly, it was demonstrated that an organisational culture oriented to the technology change and a strategic plan to adapt to the hospital's approach is necessary to a successful implementation of health information systems.Os sistemas de informação tiveram um efeito positivo no serviço de saúde com redução na documentação em papel, maior disponibilidade de informação sobre o paciente e segurança no armazenamento de dados. Por outro lado, houve um impacto negativo devido ao aumento na diversidade de sistemas a operar, que exigiram mais treino e apoio à estrutura hospitalar, associado à falta de padrões de interoperabilidade que promovam a partilha de dados do paciente. Assim, esta dissertação centra-se na análise da interoperabilidade existente entre os sistemas de informação no serviço de saúde português, em determinar os aspetos fundamentais para estabelecer a comunicação entre os mesmos e as consequências que têm na rotina do profissional de saúde. Foram realizadas entrevistas com profissionais da área e fornecedores hospitalares para recolher informação sobre a experiência na interação com esta tecnologia, a opinião sobre a influência que ela exerce na rotina hospitalar e as possíveis medidas para melhorar a atual situação. Esta investigação concluiu que a falta de interoperabilidade e uma interface pouco apelativo determinam um uso complexo destes sistemas com um elevado número de cliques e uma navegação mais lenta para executar as tarefas, que podem causar perda de tempo aos profissionais de saúde. Além disso, os hospitais públicos demonstram ter um maior número de fornecedores e menores níveis de integração entre os sistemas em comparação com os privados. Por fim, expõem-se que uma cultura organizacional direcionada para a mudança tecnológica e um plano estratégico de adaptação são necessários para o sucesso da implantação destes sistemas