Clinical information success in a maternity hospital

Abstract

Clinical staff must have access to high quality information in order to provide safe care to patients. This cannot be provided by clinical information systems (CIS) that are not correctly managed and regularly used. Ensuring the success of CIS in the healthcare environment presents a particular set of difficulties. This paper describes an action research study aimed at improving information success in a maternity hospital. Following a literature review and an in-house observational case studies, a generic model for a hospital quality assurance program (HQAP), was developed and applied. Modifications to improve the model for use in the clinical environment were applied, resulting in reliable and comprehensive data being made available to clinicians in a timely manner. This was achieved by optimising the in-house Obstetric Management CIS (OMCIS) and by developing a dashboard system, which highlights the most critical interventions and outcomes. A set of organisational benefits and key performance indicators, influenced by the Delone-McLean model [1], were developed to measure the success of OMCIS.