The Role of Electronic Medical Record Implementation for Supporting Hospital Performance: A Comparative Investigation of Selected Public and Private Hospitals in Ethiopia

Abstract BackgroundHealth is not only significant for individuals, but also for governments because it plays a fundamental role in realizing supportable financial progress and development by way of fine as effective practice of capitals. This study aimed to assess the availability, productivity and extent of utilization; contributions for quality of health service; impact on the workflow; and challenges in the use of EMR system in public and private hospitals of Ethiopia.MethodologyThe study followed descriptive and exploratory research design and mixed research approach. The study area was clustered both in the regional/ rural (Jimma) area of the country and the capital city/ urban (Addis Ababa) area of the country, these were Jimma University Medical Center (public, rural) and Oda Hulle Primary hospital (private, domestic), St. Paul Specialized hospital (public, urban) and MCM Korea Hospital (private, foreign) to enhance the representativeness of the result. The sample respondents of the study, which were selected using non-probability purposive sampling technique, were 151 health professionals, ICT technicians and managers among which 147 samples were participated in the data collection session. The data were collected using questionnaire and semi-structured interview methods. The quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS v.25 software package and the qualitative data were analyzed by thematic analysis technique.ResultThe result of this study revealed that private hospital health professionals are satisfied with the facilities in their hospital's electronic medical record better than the public hospital health professionals. Therefore, private hospital health professionals are better than public health professionals in terms of the use of private electronic medical record resources. On the other hand, higher percentage of the health professional’s agreeing that electronic medical records resources utilization and availability of electronic medical records systems and adequate resources play an important role to achieve better performance in both private and public hospitals. The result of the study also revealed that the health professional’s’ performance of private hospitals is better than health professional’s’ performance of public hospitals because of electronic medical record system resource availability and effective utilization of resources available in their hospitals.ConclusionFinally, the study forwarded the recommendations to government that developing effective electronic medical record system to minimize the gap between public and private hospitals resources and to improve the health service performance of the health professionals with respect to integrated electronic medical record system.