Stakeholder Groups in the Evaluation of Medical Information Systems

In medical information system evaluation research, often multi-disciplinary by nature, understanding of stakeholder thinking seems to be more vital than in many other areas of system evaluation. However, stakeholder groups are rarely addressed empirically or theoretically in health care related literature. In general in information systems science, four different stakeholder groups are considered: users, managers, developers and outsiders. To test the applicability of this generally used taxonomy in the medical information system field 68 people were interviewed mainly at the Turku University Central Hospital (TUCH). Our results suggest that the general taxonomy can be used, but it is not optimal. A more specific taxonomy illustrating the groups’ different interests and common issues of stakeholder groups are presented in this article. We believe that this knowledge is crucial for evaluators to be able to accomplish assessment projects successfully.