title: HIS-Monitor: an approach to assess the quality of information processing in hospitals.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  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.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Health Information Systems, UMIT, University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Hall in Tyrol, Austria. elske.ammenwerth@umit.at
authors.forename: Elske
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ammenwerth
authors.forename: Frauke
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ehlers
authors.forename: Bernhard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hirsch
authors.forename: Gordon
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gratl
mesh_terms: D001317:Austria; D006751:Hospital Information Systems / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D019451:Information Management / Q000592:standards*; D011786:Quality Control; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires