Information technology (m has become crucial to the functioning of modern hospitals. It includes a range of human elements, infornlation, equipment, knowledge and systems. It is important to hospitals, as these are complex environments including many systems with diversity of functions, sub-systems, and professionals. The adoption of technology can be explained by four general theories: economic, political, social and globalization theory. Based on these theories five sets of reasons can account for the adoption of IT in a hospital environnlent. They are, practical; to solve existing problems, economic/business; to achieve d profit or reduce costs or both, rational; to achieve efficienL1' and effectiveness, social; to respond to pressure from society for political reasons and to increase positive image, and supply driven forces by which IT producers seek to sell their products and services. However, no one theory or set of reasons can by itself explain the precise drive for use of IT because nluch depends on each hospital's needs and surrounding drcunlStances. The purposes of this research are to investigate the extent to which IT is being used in Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) public hospitals, why IT has been adopted, and the impact of IT on hospital managementThe methods used in conducting this research were based lllainly on three established methods for searching and collecting infomlation; a literature review, the surveyor questionnaire, intervie,,'s and case studies. Five case studies in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain were undertaken to cover Gee hospitals and medical centres populations. Most health and medical services in Gee Countries are provided by public hospitals which account for approximately 64% of total hospital provision, employ most medical professionals, mainly expatriates, and contain most patient beds. In Gee hospitals, IT is still in the early stages of implementation. IT has been found to be adopted at a low level due to reasons such as lack of awareness, other priorities in health policy strategies, and the low level of funding allocated. IT can provide hospitals with many benefits, solve many problems and has many inlpacts on human and functional systems, internal power balances and on the social status of hospitals. The benefits are found to be mostly in the areas of processing work. Therefore, the areas which were given priority for IT implementation were medical records, finance, and personnel areas. No significant impacts v"ere found on hospital structure, chain of conlllland, span of control and nUlllber of employees, however, itwas found that IT increased management power, hospitals' social in1age and hospital political power, while there were disagreements about IT impacts on employees' social relations. The evaluation of IT impacts on Gee hospital management shows that the impacts were not at the same level of intensity or direction, for example, sonle impacts ,",'ere positive and some negative; some significant, moderate or nurunlal, some ambiguous or obvious, were some were slow and some fast. Some efforts at Gee States level were made to develop a model of adopting IT but no real results were detected. However, the future role of IT in Gee public hospitals will be increasing perhaps at a slower pace, but two strategic issues should be given proper consideration; first; the role of the education system, research centers, and industrictl foundation, and the second strategy concerns hospital systems and services structure. This later is related to increased privatization of medical services, economic pressure, and changes in governments' employment strategy. The importance of this thesis is to draw the attention of decisionmakers to the role of IT as an efficient managerial tool in some respects and to provide a foundation for future studies
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:272025 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Saifi, Khader M. M. Al |
| Publisher | University of Hull |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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