Factors Influencing Adoption Of Health Management Information System: Case Of Kiambu Level 5 Hospital, Kiambu County Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to study factors influencing the adoption of Health management information system (HMIS) in the delivery of health care by focusing on Kiambu level 5 hospital in Kiambu County. Health management Information system is a Secure and cost effective way of using the ICT to support health related field including health literature, surveillance research and training. HMIS improves cost control, timeliness and accurateness of patient data, administration and sharing of information, lessens personnel costs, inventory levels, and improves the quality of patient care. This study was guided by four research objectives: affordability, training on ICT skills, ICT infrastructure and data management. Other variables that were examined were years of experience, gender, training on ICT skills, previous experience in HMIS, internet usage, and the frequency of ICT use among health care practitioners. The study was founded on the Technology Acceptance Model and Diffusion of Innovation theory as the key theoretical models. The web of relationships between the study variables was demonstrated by a conceptual framework. The study adopted a descriptive survey design with a target population of 245 health care practitioners and a sample size of 148 respondents. A questionnaire with both structured and unstructured questions was used. The pilot study was done at Thika level 5 hospital using 10 percent of the total respondents which was 148, using a sample of the15 respondents that were selected from the sample frame with similar characteristics as the sample population prior to the main research study to verify its validity and reliability. Quantitative data was coded and analyzed using SPSS version 20 using mean, percentage, Variance, correlation coefficient and coefficient of determination. Qualitative data was studied by making inferences from the expressions and opinions of the respondents around the variables. The findings were presented in frequency tables and explanation presented in prose, 148 questionnaires were distributed and the questionnaire return rate was 100 percent. From the analysis 73.0 percent of the respondents agreed that the HMIS had been budgeted for while 27.0 percent disagreed. Training on ICT Skills 81.8 percent of the respondents agreed that they had computer skills and can satisfactorily perform computer operations while 18.9 percent could not perform computer operations. In ICT infrastructure 72.3 percent of the respondents agreed that the system is well connected but not everybody can access the computer since they are not enough whereas 27.7 percent did not agree was connected. In data management 3.4 percent of the respondents agreed there were no backups while 96 percent disagree. This results show a very low adoption status of the HMIS. The main recommendations were for Medical training schools to adapt using of HMIS in training their students, for the Government of Kenya to come up with standardization policies for the developers to follow when designing the HMIS.