Early stage evolution of a hospital information system in a middle income country: a case study of Korea

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to understand the adoption trend of hospital information systems (HIS) in Korea. Our main interest was when hospitals adopted each component of HIS and how they expanded the system. A telephone survey with structured questionnaires was performed in the department of HIS in each hospital. As of 1998, 276 hospitals had been contacted with a response rate of 93.5%;. Hospital information systems have been introduced rapidly since the early 1990s and mainly focused on business and financial systems, patient management systems (PMS) and management information systems (MIS). From the mid-1990s, HIS has been developed to include medical record management systems (MRS), order communication systems (OCS), laboratory information systems (LIS), and picture archiving and communication systems (PACS). Recently Korean hospitals have adopted HIS in the following order of magnitude: PMS, MIS, MRS, OCS, LIS and PACS.