A procedure for evaluating primary health care software.

Managers in health care often find themselves in the difficult position of having to make decisions regarding the purchasing of software and hardware which they are not qualified to make. The aim of this paper is to support health managers in their decision making by means of a procedure and an instrument that can be used to evaluate primary health care software. A seven step approach to the evaluation process is proposed and each step is discussed in detail. The paper concludes with a proposed software evaluation instrument that is suitable for application in the health care environment.