a survey of the possibility of electronic medical records implementation in teaching hospitals affliated to urmia university of medical sciences

a survey of the possibility of electronic medical records implementation in teaching hospitals affliated to urmia university of medical sciences    gozali e [1] , langarizadeh m [2] * , sadoughi f [3]     received: 14 apr , 2013 accepted: 13 jun , 2013    abstract  background & aims : nowadays, increasing of health information production caused application of new technologies in terms of utilization of information in this area. electronic medical record (emr), an example of such technologies, is a well known and valuable system to access patient information in hospitals. emr is an electronic form of medical records which available through a network to achieve primary goals of health care. the aim of this research is to identify and compare the status of teaching hospitals affiliated to urmia university of medical sciences in terms of manpower in order to implement electronic medical record.   materials & methods : the present descriptive analytic cross – sectional study was carried out in 2011. the research population included 98 top and middle managers of the hospitals namely chief and administrator of the hospitals, director of nursing services, educational and clinical supervisors, head of wards, administrative and financial authorities, it officer, medical record staff, and officials in charge of all treatment and diagnostic (laboratory, radiology and pharmacy) departments. census method was used in this study. a questionnaire with two sections was used for data collection. the first section was to determine the level of awareness and the second section was to check the requirements related to required standards for implementation of emr. validity and reliability of the questionnaire was evaluated, and spss software was used for data analysis.   results: at all the 5 hospitals, the knowledge of the participants was at moderate level. in addition, in terms of manpower standard requirement of emr, two hospitals were in appropriate status and one hospital was in moderate level.   conclusion: out of 5 hospitals, in terms of manpower standard requirement of emr, two hospitals were in appropriate status and one hospital was in moderate level. implementation of emr caused to increase quality of health care, patient safety and speed of deal with patients. it would also lead to reduce health cost. therefore, it is highly recommended that hospitals should try to prepare necessary interventions to establish emr.   key words: electronic medical record, teaching hospitals, health services     address: faculty of allied medical sciences, tehran university of medical sciences, hemmat highway, next to milad tower, tehran, iran   tel: (+98) 9198616016   email : [email protected]   [1] ms student of health information technology, school of health management and information sciences, tehran university of medical science  [2] assistant professor of medical informatics, department of health information management, faculty of allied medical sciences, tehran university of medical science(corresponding author)  [3] associate professor of health information management, school of health management and information sciences, tehran university of medical science