iarjimphIARJIMPHIARJIMPH2709-331Xhttps://doi.org/10.47310/iarjimph.2021.v02i02.033A Study on the Utilization of Hospital Information System in Inpatient WardsMohammedBasheer N.M.KritharthP. K.SunitaSaldanhaIntroduction: Hospital Information System (HIS) is a comprehensive, integrated information system designed to manage the administrative, financial and clinical aspects of a hospital2. A Hospital Information System is essentially a computer system that can manage all the information to allow health care providers to do their jobs effectively. It is also known as Healthcare Information System. Hospital information systems have become very advanced and new innovations are continuously being introduced. But a HIS is useless if it confuses the hospital employees. The system must be user friendly and should include training by the vendors. If a hospital’s information system were not compatible with the individual’s general duties, using it would be complicated and might be hard to understand. The users will not like it and in case it does not satisfy the needs, the users would ignore it, and they even might consider the system an intruder and irritating factor. Objectives: The main objective of this study is to find out the utilization of Ward management module of HIS and to understand the challenges faced by the staff in HIS at the hospital. Methodology: The existing ward management module of Hospital Information System (HIS) was studied by personal observation over a period of one month (May 2019). The detailed working of the module was observed. The design and features of the module, the flow of information, the interfacing of the module with other modules in the system, storage of information and the utilization by the end users were noted. This was supplemented with additional information from the department of Information Technology YMCH. Checklist was used to assess the level of utilization of ward management module; the checklist was prepared based on the components of ward management module. Due to the time constraints six wards were selected from out of thirty-three wards by lottery method. The data was collected by checklist for the period of six months that is each month in each selected ward. Result: In this study 6 inpatient wards were explored for their use of HIS. Out of the six inpatient wards four inpatient wards, that is General Surgery, Urology, Paediatric and OBG wards were found to have similar level of utilization of HIS, that is, around 72% and two inpatient wards i.e. General medicine and Dermatology with 68% utilization. To study the challenges faced by the staff in utilizing the HIS, Total of 90 staff members were randomly selected and included. Technical concerns, perception on security threats and consumption of time were compared with difficulties faced while using. No significant challenges were found in the utilization of HIS (p-values of 0.492, 0.342 and 0.311 respectively). In other words, there was no significant association between the various causes and factors which could lead participants to face difficulties in HIS use. Conclusion: Hospital Information Systems (HIS) is an efficient tool to aid in the diagnosis, management, training and practices. As there is a large number of patient inflow, it is a challenge for the administration to run the hospital smoothly. In such a scenario, it is important for Hospital employees to do their jobs in an efficient and effective manner. HIS can then come to rescue by helping not just employees but patients and care takers as a well.