Self esteem and organizational commitment among health information management staff in tertiary care hospitals in Tehran

BACKGROUND: Self esteem (SE) and organizational commitment (OC)? have significant impact on the quality of work life. AIM: This study aims to gain a better understanding of the relationships between SE and OC among health information management staff in tertiary care hospitals in Tehran (Iran). METHODS: This was a descriptive correlational and cross sectional study conducted on the health information management staff of tertiary care hospitals in Tehran, Iran. A total of 155 participants were randomly selected from 400 staff. Data were collected by two standard questionnaires. The SE and OC was measured using Eysenck SE scale and Meyer and Allen's three component model, respectively. The collected data were analyzed with the SPSS (version 16) using statistical tests of of independent T-test, Pearson Correlation coefficient, one way ANOVA and F tests. RESULTS: The OC and SE of the employees' were 67.8?, out of 120 (weak) and 21.0 out of 30 (moderate), respectively. The values for affective commitment, normative commitment, and continuance commitment were respectively 21.3 out of 40 (moderate), 23.9 out of 40 (moderate), and 22.7 out of 40 (moderate). The Pearson correlation coefficient test showed a significant OC and SE was statistically significant (P<0.05). The one way ANOVA test (P<0.05) did not show any significant difference between educational degree and work experience with SE and OC. CONCLUSION: This research showed that SE and OC ?are moderate. SE and OC have strong correlation with turnover, critical thinking, job satisfaction, and individual and organizational improvement. Therefore, applying appropriate human resource policies is crucial to reinforce these measures

Health Information Economy: Literature Review

INTRODUCTION: Health Information Economy (HIE) is one of the broader, more complex, and challenging and yet important topics in the field of health science that requires the identification of its dimensions for planning and policy making. The aim of this study was to determine HIE concept dimensions. METHODS: This paper presents a systematic methodology for analyzing the trends of HIE. For this purpose, the main keywords of this area were identified and searched in the databases and from among 4775 retrieved sources, 12 sources were studied in the field of HIE. RESULTS: Information Economy (IE) in the world has passed behind four paradigms that involve the information evaluation perspective, the information technology perspective, the asymmetric information perspective and information value perspective. In this research, the fourth perspective in the HIE was analyzed. The main findings of this research were categorized in three major groups, including the flow of information process in the field of health (production. collection, processing and dissemination), and information applications in the same field (education, research, health industry, policy, legislation, and decision-making) and the underlying fields. CONCLUSION: According to the findings, HIE has already developed a theoretical and conceptual gap that due to its importance in the next decade would be one of the research approaches to health science

Information technology governance domains in hospitals: a case study in Iran

IT governance is a set of organizational structures ensuring decision-making rights and responsibilities with regard to the organization's IT assets. This qualitative study was carried out to identify the IT governance domains in teaching hospitals affiliated to Iran University of Medical Sciences. There were 10 heads of IT departments and 10 hospital directors. Semi structured interviews used for data collection. To analyze the data content analysis was applied. All the interviewees (100) believed that decisions upon hospital software needs could be made in a decentralized fashion by the IT department of the university. Most of the interviewees (90) believed that there were policies for logistics and maintenance of networks, purchase and maintenance, standards and general policies in the direction of the policies of the ministry of health and medical education. About 80 of the interviewees believed that the current emphasis of the hospital's IT unit and the hospital management for outsourcing of services were in the format of specialized contracts and under supervision of the university Statistic and IT department. A hospital strategic committee is an official organizational group consisting of hospital executives, heads of IT and multiple functional areas and business units in a hospital. In this committee, "the head of hospital" acts as the director of IT activities and ensures that IT strategies are alignment with the hospital business strategies

The comparison of the minimum data set for elderly health in selected countries

Introduction: Ongoing increase in the elderly population in many developed countries has drawn attention to health of this age group. Recording adequate and relevant data for the elderly is considered as the basis for future planning for this segment of society. So this study was conducted to compare minimum data about elderly health in selected countries. Methods: This review study was conducted through Internet and library studies. Key words were extracted from search engines and data bases including Google, Yahoo, Google Scholar, PubMed, ProQuest and Iranian National Medical Digital Library. Inclusion criteria included English language with no time limits. All articles, research projects, theses, guidelines and progress reports were retrieved from the United States, Sweden, Japan and Iran and reviewed. Also, websites of organizations responsible for elderly health in selected countries were visited and their documents were reviewed. Results from this search were provided narratively and finally were presented within comparison tables. Findings: The findings of this study showed that elderly data in the selected countries are collected around four axis including minimum demographic data, medical histories, health assessment and financial data of elderly health. Discussion and Conclusion: Given the importance of the minimum data set of elderly health for future planning, the use of experiences of leading countries in elderly health seems necessary; however, localization of it according to the country's needs is inevitable. © 2015 Nasrin Davaridolatabadi, Mehraban Shahi, Farahnaz Sadoughi, Maryam Ahmadi

Information security risk management for computerized health information systems in hospitals: A case study of Iran

Background: In recent years, hospitals in Iran - similar to those in other countries - have experienced growing use of computerized health information systems (CHISs), which play a significant role in the operations of hospitals. But, the major challenge of CHIS use is information security. This study attempts to evaluate CHIS information security risk management at hospitals of Iran. Materials and methods: This applied study is a descriptive and cross-sectional research that has been conducted in 2015. The data were collected from 551 hospitals of Iran. Based on literature review, experts� opinion, and observations at five hospitals, our intensive questionnaire was designed to assess security risk management for CHISs at the concerned hospitals, which was then sent to all hospitals in Iran by the Ministry of Health. Results: Sixty-nine percent of the studied hospitals pursue information security policies and procedures in conformity with Iran Hospitals Accreditation Standards. At some hospitals, risk identification, risk evaluation, and risk estimation, as well as risk treatment, are unstructured without any specified approach or methodology. There is no significant structured approach to risk management at the studied hospitals. Conclusion: Information security risk management is not followed by Iran�s hospitals and their information security policies. This problem can cause a large number of challenges for their CHIS security in future. Therefore, Iran�s Ministry of Health should develop practical policies to improve information security risk management in the hospitals of Iran. © 2016 Zarei and Sadoughi

Social network analysis of Iranian researchers on medical parasitology: A 41 year co-authorship survey

Background: The aim of this study was to survey the Iranian Parasitology researchers� performance, and analyse and visualize the scientific outputs of their co-authorship network. Methods: This study was conducted using scientometric method and social network analysis (SNA). The data extracted from the Web of Science (WoS) databases in July 10th 2014. Totally, 1048documents of all types in research area of Parasitology during 1972-2013 by Iranian researches retrieved. The coauthorship map was drawn utilizing NETDRAW, Coauthor.exe, and UCINET softwares and was analysed based on SNA measures. Results: The researchers� co-authorship network consisted of 78 authors and its density degree is 0.57. �Mohebali� ranked top in all of centrality measures.The most of the publications were related to 2012, �Mohebali� with about 9 of all documents was the Iranian most prolific author in Parasitology field. The Iranian researches have published mostly (266 documents) in �Iranian Journal of Parasitology�, and the most of the documents belong to �Tropical Medicine� subject field. The most of Iranian researchers� scientific cooperation was performed with England and United States. Conclusion: Bringing forth density degree (is 0.57) showed that this network has an almost medium density. Indeed, the authors have had relations in moderate level with each other in the network. The findings of this study can be identified aspects of scientific collaboration, and help policy makers of Parasitology field research. © 2016, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS). All rights reserved

Analysis of geographical accessibility to rural health houses using the geospatial information system, a case study: Khuzestan Province, south-west Iran

Background: The use of rural health houses is one of the important approaches for delivering health services but, inappropriate infrastructures and limited resources make it difficult to design and implement plans to enhance and improve health services in rural areas. The aim of this study was to analyze the accessibility to rural health care services in the province of Khuzestan Materials and methods: This applied research was conducted in Khuzestan Province, south-west Iran with a cross-sectional approach in 2014. The population of the study was the villages and rural health houses. All the villages and rural health houses were included in the study without sampling. Descriptive data collected with a checklist from the Statistical Centre of Iran, IT Department of the Management Deputy of the Governor's Office and Ahvaz Jundishapur and Dezful University of Medical Sciences and spatial data obtained from the national Cartographic Center. The validity of the checklist was confirmed by 5 Public Health experts and 3 senior experts of the GIS system. Data analyzed with Arc GIS 9.3 software. Results: Khuzestan Province has 3461 villages with inhabitants. Based on the geographical distance to the nearest health house, 358 villages (10.34) with inhabitants were outside the service provision area with a distance of more than 6 In order to measure the total petroleum hydrocarbon available in the soil, first, 1 gr of the pot soil was taken and 10 ml dichloromethane solvent added to it, then the mixture was stirred for 5 minutes, and the resulting mixture was centrifuged for 5 minutes at a speed of 3000 rpm. After being centrifuged, 1 ml of the centrifuged solution was transferred to vials that were weighed before, and the dichloromethane was permitted to evaporate in the air for 48 hours. Afterwards, the vials were weighed again, and the removal percentage of the petroleum hydrocarbons was calculated based on the weight difference between the vials (21).km. Based on the population covered by health houses, 11 villages with more than 1000 population had inappropriate access to health houses. Conclusions: The results showed that geographical conditions and developmental infrastructures of the rural areas were some major challenges of access to health houses in Khuzestan Province, which requires the cooperation of several governmental sectors. Collection and storage of accurate, up-to-date, and complete information are very important steps in delivering primary healthcare services and enhancing the rural population health

Evaluating the factors that influence cloud technology adoption�comparative case analysis of health and non-health sectors: A systematic review

Cloud technology has brought great benefits to the health industry, including enabling improvement in the quality of services. The objective of this review study is to investigate the reported factors affecting the adoption of cloud in the health sector by comparing studies in the health and non-health sectors. This article is a systematized review of studies conducted in 2018. From 541 articles, 47 final articles were selected and classified into two categories: health and non-health studies; conclusions were drawn from the two sectors by comparing their effective factors. Based on the results of this review, the factors were categorized as technological, organizational, environmental, and individual. The results of this review study could be a beneficial guide to the health empirical research on cloud adoption. Individual domains have not been examined in health sector studies. Since the process of adoption of new technologies in organizations is time-consuming, due to the lack of managerial knowledge about the efficient factors, recognition of these factors by decision-makers while planning for cloud adoption becomes of great importance. The findings of this review study aim to help health decision-makers by increasing their awareness of the cloud and of the factors that impact decisions at both the organizational and individual levels. © The Author(s) 2019

Required data elements and requirements of a teleoncology system to provide treatment plans for patients with breast cancer

Background: Teleoncology refers to the use of telemedicine for remotely providing multiple specialized services in clinical oncology processes, including screening, diagnosis, treatment planning, consultation, supportive care, pathology, surgery, and follow-up services. Objectives: The aim of this study was to identify the required data elements and elicitation of requirements for developing a telemedicine system that aims at providing treatment plans for patients with breast cancer. Methods: In this study, the required data elements for the teleoncology system were identified through both the investigation of clinical guidelines and review of patients� medical records. Identified data elements were determined by breast cancer specialists through the questionnaire. Besides, an interview method was applied to elicit the requirements of this system. Results: The identified data elements were categorized into 20 groups (e.g., clinical data, breast physical examinations, pathological results, tests, imaging results, etc.). From the 182 data elements included within the questionnaire, 125 were recognized to be necessary (n = 32, 100). The lowest mean percentage were observed in magnesium blood test (Mg) (n = 21, 65.63) and protein test (Pr) (n = 21, 65.63). Other data elements with a minimum mean of 71.87 and a maximum mean of 100 were recognized necessary. In general, 2 major themes, 9 categories, and 45 related sub-categories were extracted from analyzing the findings of the interviews related to the system requirements. Conclusions: The findings of the present study can be used as a basis for developing teleoncology systems that aim at providing treatment plans for patients with breast cancer. © 2020, Author(s)

An expert system to diagnose pneumonia using fuzzy logic

Introduction: Pneumonia is the most common and widespread killing disease of respiratory system which is difficult to diagnose due to identical clinical signs of respiratory system. Aim: In this research, to diagnose this, a structure of a fuzzy expert system has been offered. This is done in order to help general physicians and the patients make decision and also differentiate among chronic bronchitis, tuberculosis, asthma, embolism, lung cancer. Methods: This system has been created using fuzzy expert system and it has been created in 4 stages: Definition of knowledge system, design of knowledge system, implementation of system, system testing using prototype life cycle methodology. Results: The system has 97 percent sensitivity, 85 percent specificity, 93 percent accuracy to diagnose the disease. Conclusion: Framework of the knowledge of specialist physicians using fuzzy model and its rules can help diagnose the disease correctly. © 2019 Leila Akramian Arani, Frahnaz Sadoughi, Mustafa Langarizadeh