Wie zufrieden sind Anwender mit der IT-Unterstützung im Krankenhaus? Pilotstudie zur empirischen Erhebung und Validierung der allgemeinen Zufriedenheit von IT-Anwendern im Krankenhaus

Objectives: In the health informatics field little is known about the general user satisfaction with hospital information technology. According to our research, most of the hospital chief information officers (CIOs) do not measure user satisfaction. Amongst the small number of hospital CIOs with relevant data, the majority use self-developed hands-on questionnaires of poor empirical quality. Moreover, there are barely any national studies on user perception on hospital IT service quality available in Germany, or elsewhere. Hence the purpose of this study was to (1) develop and validate a scale and (2) measure the general user satisfaction with information technology and services in hospitals. Methods: The online survey addressed health professionals (n=2,318 in 28 hospitals), i.e. physicians and nurses. Psychometric evaluation was conducted via reliability and exploratory factor analysis. Results: Our investigation in 28 hospitals shows that the instrument is reliable, valid and suitable for assessing user satisfaction with hospital information services. The evaluated IT services meet the users’ expectations, i.e. with above average voting on IT staff competencies, commitment and friendliness. Nurses tend to rate significantly higher, and differences between high and low-performing hospital IT departments suggest starting points for further improvement. Conclusions: The results of the first pilot study in the research field of user satisfaction with IT services in hospitals are presented. Our data analysis gives first reference values on general user satisfaction with hospital IT. The developed scale should be considered as reliable, valid and useful for further research