The implementation of e-health in Iran, particularly Isfahan, is subject to similar challenges as in other countries throughout the world. Hence, e-health implementers need to adhere to the proposed solutions in order to overcome the mentioned challenges in such complex projects.

Background:The area of e-Health is broad and has an excellent growth potential. An increasing number of experts believe that e-Health will fuel the next breakthroughs in health system improvements throughout the world, but there is frequent evidence of unsustainable use of e-Health systems in medical centres, particularly hospitals, for different reasons in different countries. Iran is also a developing country which is presently adopting this promising technology for its traditional healthcare delivery but there is not much information about the use of e-Health systems in its hospitals, and the weakness and opportunities of utilization of such Hospital Information Systems (HIS).Methods:For this research, a number of Hospitals from Isfahan, Iran, are selected using convenient sampling. E-health research professionals went there to observe their HIS and collect required data as a qualitative survey. The design of interview questions was based on the researchers’ experiences and knowledge in this area along with elementary interviews with experts on HIS utilization in hospitals.Results:Efficient administration of e-health implementation improves the quality of healthcare, reduces costs and medical errors, makes healthcare resources available to rural areas, etc. However, there are numerous issues affecting the successful utilization of e-health in Hospitals, such as a lack of a perfect HIS implementation plan and well-defined strategy, inadequate IT-security for the protection of e-health-related data, improper training and educational issues, legal challenges, privacy concerns, improper documentation of lessons learned, resistance to the application of new technologies, and finally a lack of recovery plan and disaster management. These results along with some informative stories are extracted from interview sessions to uncover associated challenges of HIS utilization in Iranian hospitals.Conclusion:The utilization of e-health in Iranian hospitals, particularly those in Isfahan, is subject to several challenges and there is no proper long-term strategy plans for HIS initiation, development, and improvement in Iranian hospitals. In order to address these problems, six recommendations are provided. Hence, human resource and e-health professionals from third party consultancy companies along with medical university scholars have to assist such hospitals to undertake the proposed solutions in order to provide proper plans to overcome future challenges and have a mature HIS in accordance with expected HIS utilization from hospitals and medical universities.

IntroductionToday, health information technologies are base of health services and Electronic Medical Record is one of them. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) on EMR at Central Polyclinic Oil Industry that is a pioneer in implementation of EMR in Isfahan.MethodsThis study was an applied and analytical survey that it was done at the Central Polyclinic Oil Industry. Because statistical population were limited, sampling bas been done by conducting the census and the sample was according to the population. The data was collected by a researcher-made questionnaire that it was validated by experts and its reliability was confirmed by test retest. The questionnaire was developed in 5 scopes including external factors (data quality and user interface), perceived usefulness, perceived ease of usefulness, attitude toward using, and behavioral intention to use. The Results analyzed by SPSS.ResultsThere was a significant relationship between data quality with PU(r=/295, p/005).DiscussionThe survey of the scopes in the polyclinic showed that there is relationship among user interface, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of usefulness, attitude toward using, and behavioral intention to use, but data quality has no relationship with attitude. It seems the system designers didn’t consider to data quality characteristics. It is proposed that they consult with health information management professionals for improvement the existing system.

Introduction: Today, eHealth is base of health services around the world, and electronic health records as an essential core element and its basic architecture for telehealth is considered. EHR offers many potential opportunities for healthcare systems we must focus on its challenges and related guidelines but for EHR deployment. The purpose of this paper is exploration challenges of EHR implementation and related guidelines in Isfahan. Methods: This is a qualitative study and we used the method of phenomenology, a in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 of Physicians, Managers and Clear Sighted persons who had experiences regarding with electronic health record. Conclusion: The researcher divided challenges into two areas of infrastructure and structural. Challenges of electronic health records infrastructure are due to information technology, lack of uniform definitions and concepts, cultural problems, and lack of needs assessment before implementation and the challenges of structural are due to instability enforced, violations of privacy and legal cases, compromise getting information management, and lack of integration and sharing of enterprise-level.

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Background and purpose:The user’s satisfaction with information system in fact denotes the extent the user is satisfied with the system’s achievement in fulfilling his/her information requirements. This study tries to explore the users’ satisfaction with hospital information systems (HISs) based on DeLone and McLean’s model focusing on the medical-teaching hospitals of Isfahan city.Methodology:This study which was applied and descriptive-analytical in nature was carried out in the medical-teaching hospitals of Isfahan city in 2009. Research population consisted of the system users from which a sample was selected using random sampling method. The size of the sample was 228. Data collection instrument was a self-developed questionnaire produced based on the satisfaction criterion in the DeLone and McLean’s model. Its content validity was assessed based on the opinions given by the computer sciences professionals with its estimated Cronbach’s alpha found to be 92.2%. The data were analyzed using SPSS software.Findings:As the findings of the study showed, the differences among the mean scores obtained for the satisfaction with different kinds of HISs in use in the hospitals were statistically significant (p value≤0.05). Generally, Kowsar System (old version) and Pouya Samaneh Diva system gained the highest and lowest mean scores for the criterion in question, respectively. The overall mean score for the satisfaction was 54.6% for different types of systems and 55.6% among the hospitals.Conclusion:Given the findings of the study, it can be argued that based on the used model, the level of users’ satisfaction with the systems in question was relatively good. However, to achieve the total optimum condition, when designing the system, the factors affecting the enhancement of the users’ satisfaction and the type of hospital activity and specialty must be given special consideration.

Introduction:One of the major issues in hospitals is the period for which the medical records are retained. Health information management professionals traditionally have performed retention and destruction functions using all media, including paper, images, optical disk, microfilm, DVD, and CD-ROM. Health information management departments must maintain a specific program to retain and destruct the records. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the retention and destruction process of medical records in the hospitals in Isfahan and codifying the appropriate guidelines.Materials and Methods:The research was conducted as a cross-sectional descriptive study in 30 hospitals in Isfahan. The data was collected using a Check List. Also 30 medical records experts’ viewpoints were obtained using the Delphi technique. Data entry and statistical analysis was performed using SPSS.Results:The findings indicated that 53.8% of the study population maintained a written policy. A 34.6% maintained a written policy to destruct medical records. And 50% announced that no instructions had been given to the hospitals by qualified authorities to destruct the medical records.Discussion:The majority of the hospitals are still unclear about the retention period of medical records, which could be due to not to mention the retention period for most medical records by the country's National Literature and lack of policy and procedure in hospitals.Conclusions:According to the legislations, hospitals are bound to retain the inpatients’ records for full 15 years but based on the findings of this research, less than half of the study population retained the inpatients’ records for the period mentioned.