Quality of Health Information Systems

Abstract The quality of the management of information systems comprises the quality of IT governance, the quality of strategic, tactical, and operational management, and the quality of architectures and infrastructures of health information systems. Quality of IT governance comprises, among other things, clear responsibilities for strategic, tactical, and operational management. Quality of strategic management comprises, among other things, the availability of a strategic information management plan aligned with business goals together with a strategic project portfolio and strategic monitoring based on key performance indicators. Quality of tactical management comprises state-of-the-art project management. Quality of operational management comprises, among other things, a business continuity plan, information technology service management and service-level agreements, and competent IT staff. The quality of architectures and infrastructures comprises, among other things, sufficient support for information and knowledge, reliable and user-friendly application systems, a flexible information system architecture, integrated application systems allowing high levels of data integration, semantic integration, context integration, user interface integration, feature integration, and process integration, and stable and available physical data processing systems. Evaluating the quality of information systems comprises several steps: identification of an evaluation question which depends on the phase of adoption of an application system and the decision that is to be made; deciding on a study design; the collection of quantitative or qualitative data; and, finally, answering the evaluation question to support a decision.