Front-line hospital staff from six hospitals rate benefits of hospital information systems.

The purpose of these descriptive, correlational studies was to identify benefits realized from computerized hospital information systems (HIS) and the value of those benefits as perceived by front-line system users. A total of 695 respondents from six hospitals described benefits related to the quality of care, interdisciplinary communication, and collaboration; these were realized to a greater extent and were more important than benefits related to cost-savings. Perceptions of nurses regarding the extent to which benefits were realized were not significantly different than those of non-nurse staff; however nurses rated potential benefits much higher in importance than did non-nurses. Perceptions were not consistently linked to demographic variables; the factor most influencing perceptions was the extent of computerization in the department. Findings appear useful to researchers studying HIS benefits and to system designers and vendors endeavoring to make HIS more user-friendly, functional, and marketable.