End-users’ voice in procurement process of an integrated health and social care information system

Abstract

Introduction: Lack of the end-user’s voice in electronic health record system EHR implementations has been regarded as one of the key issues behind failures of large-scale implementation projects REF. Procurement process of an information system can be considered as the first phase in the implementation process where the acceptance of end-users is crucial to be considered as a part of change management. We present how future end-users were involved in the procurement process of a fully integrated information system for specialized and primary health care and social care. Method/results: At the beginning of the procurement we formed a matrix of central IT functionalities needed in health and social care and future end-user roles. We involved 400 future end-users to take part in 22 workshops arranged around functionalities and various working environments they are used. In addition to taking part to the defining the requirements for the procurement nurses, physicians and social workers were chosen for the key end-user role in the selection process of the procurement. Selection process included e.g. a product evaluation with user scenarios. Results: Key end users formed the majority xx% of the participants of the selection process. Of the final selection criteria in the two-phased process, xx% and yy% of the points came from the assessments of the future end-users. As a conclusion, it is possible to say that health and social care professionals of various specialties were well represented especially in defining requirements. This proved to be a basis for a strong insight of clinical and social care content in the procurement process and helped to form an end-user’s perspective also to other modalities e.g. in technical issues Conclusions: We succeeded in recruiting the end-users and there were representatives from all the key specialties of social and health care. It is important to see participation of the end-users as a key element of the successful procurement process of electronic social and health care information system and to consider this phase as preparing to the actual implementation- and deployment of the system. Currently we are in the phase of implementation and the first deployment is in November 2018. We have continued the same emphasis off having a strong involvement of nurses, physicians and social care workers and until now found it a promising way of developing the content needed by the end-users and as a part of change management.