respect rate of hospital information system criteria of american college of physicians in educational hospitals of iran, tehran and shahid beheshti medical sciences universities

introduction: electronic medical records has of practically paved the way to centralize information without being worried about physical space. although iran, from technological point of view, is able to compete with developed countries, it has fallen because of medical records technology. in this study, hospital information systems in educational hospitals in tehran province were compared with the criteria of american college of physicians to specify the shortcomings and ultimately some recommendations were offered to develop national criteria to the level of those of the above mentioned college. methods: this was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted in 2006. the research population included all educational hospitals of iran (14 hospitals), tehran (12 hospitals) and shahid beheshti (9 hospitals) universities. since all of the related hospitals were studied, no sampling was done. data collection was done through direct observation and interview. using 9 checklists based on the criteria of american college of physicians (including pharmacies, laboratories, radiology and medical records departments, and clinical wards). data analysis was done using descriptive statistics via spss software. results: the average conformity in the medical records departments in iran, tehran and shahid beheshti medical sciences universities was 29.1, 25.6, 29.7, in pharmacies 39.7, 39.3, 36.8, in radiology departments 36.4, 36.8, 37.7, in laboratories 38.3, 37.2, 29.8, in referral features 38.7, 39, 34.5, in clinical interactions 33.1, 32.5, 29.2, in preventive medicine 38.2, 36.7, 33.9, in patient education 37.1, 36.6, 37.7 and 38.7, 43.4, 39.6 in diagnostic features, respectively. conclusion: the rate of final conformity in hospital information systems in educational hospitals to the criteria of the american college of physician indicated that the total average of medical records systems is less than 50 ( < 50). on the other hand, since the total average of medical records systems is less than 50, it is concluded that rate of conformity in medical records systems of educational hospital of tehran province is low.