I am looking into how we can determine the value of Health Information Systems investment as a basis of convincing the county government to invest in it.
However, there are no generally accepted valuation strategy that have been developed for information systems in either the business or health care domains.
I would appreciate theories around the above area.
Hi,
I think this is a very difficult task, and I unfortunately can not give you a valuation model. I don't even think a good one exists, and would personally distrust any claim that such valuation could be precise. There are just so many dependent and independent variables to adequately cover in a model. Luckily, it is much easier to make the case why governments should invest in HIS or not, irrespective of the specific costs. You don't write what kind of HIS you are thinking of. Some types are easier to justify than others. Some examples:
For logistics management systems, there will be studies on wastage rates, lost to corruption, aborted services etc that will give an indication of costs of NOT having a functioning IS. These figures tend to be very high, and if only a minor percentage of the costs can be saved it will more than cover the costs of a logistics management information system
For other systems, it could be valuable to look at costs of lack of service provision, in terms of DALY or other related way to measure health. BUT, I would argue that it is better to look at the challenges of the health system like quality of services, patient satisfaction, patient waiting time, etc. While some HIS projects are notorious for being among the most expensive IT projects ever, HIS tend to be quite cheap compared to other inputs in the health service like staff, commodities, and infrastructure/buildings. If better information can lead to better efficiency of these other inputs, the savings can be great. What are some key health indicators, and what are the bottlenecks to improve them? If immunization rates are low, and it is because of poor distribution of staff, then HIS that is able to provide analysis on staff density per population will be useful. Etc etc. So to conclude, I think rather than using a valuation "model" or "theory", I would do an assessment of health service provision and the role of information in this and subsequently see if lack of relevant information is a major challenge. Anyway, it will be interesting to see if anyone else knows of such models or theories.
Best regards,
Hi.,
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Hi,
I do not think you will find a single theory or even a single approach as an answer to your question, the subject is an extremely complex one. But you may find something relevant in the following book
Applied Interdisciplinary Theory in Health Informatics, IOS Press, 2019
EditorsScott, P., De Keizer, N., Georgiou, A.
Ii's an open-access eBook.
Look also at the "Evidence-Based Health Informatics" and other books in the IOS Press series Studies in Health Technology and Informatics,
Michael Shifrin Thanks a lot, I am looking into the books and they have wonderful theories worth pursuing further.
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