Improving Clinical Diagnosis in Public Hospitals in Nigeria: Influence of Health Information Use in Decision-Making

The aim of the study was to determine health information use in the decision-making process in clinical practice by physicians in public hospitals, South West, Nigeria. To achieve the objectives of the study, two research questions raised and answered in the study were; What are the health information sources used by physicians in public secondary hospitals in Lagos State Nigeria? What is the purpose of health information use among physicians in public secondary hospitals in Lagos State Nigeria? This study is a hospital-based survey conducted across 10 public secondary hospitals in a State in South West, Nigeria. A total of 107 physicians were sampled, adopting a proportionate sampling technique to select relative proportional samples of physicians in ten (10) secondary hospitals. A structured questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from the study respondents. Results showed that physicians under-use scientific evidence-based biomedical health information sources in making informed clinical decisions. Improving clinical safety practices was the most important purpose for which physicians make use of health information. The study recommended that physicians need to be motivated towards making regular use of scientific through workshops to emphasize the importance of evidence-based and informed decision making in ensuring quality and safety of patient care. In addition, hospital management implementation of point-of-care electronic medical records/health information systems and subscribe regularly to online biomedical databases, peer-review e-journals