Assessing primary health care readiness for large-scale electronic health record system implementation: Project team perspective.

INTRODUCTION: The introduction of information technology was one of the key priorities for policymakers in healthcare organisations over the last two decades, due to the potential benefits of this technology to improve healthcare services and quality. However, about 50% of those projects failed to achieve their intended aims. This was as a result of several factors and included the level of readiness to the new IT projects. AIM: The aim of the study was to assess the readiness of Saudi primary health care centres (PHCCs) readiness for the implementation of an electronic health record system (EHRS) from the project team perspective. METHODS: Explanatory mixed methods design was used with both qualitative and quantitative methods. Thirty-one members of project team at the ministry of health (MOH) participated in the online-based questionnaire, while 13 participants from the same population took part in the semi-structure interviews. Eight different readiness scales were quantitatively examined. These scales include resources, Knowledge, process, management structure and administrative support, end user, technology and values and goals. RESULT: Although, very high level of readiness has been recorded at the process, management structure and administrative support levels, readiness was average at the end user, technology and values and goals levels. Moreover, the study findings revealed that primary health care centres readiness for an electronic health record system must be considered in the early stages of implementation (pre-implementation phase), particularly readiness at a technical level, such as preparedness of the infrastructure. A positive significant correlation has been recorded between all readiness scales with centralization of management system and financial resources. CONCLUSION: Overall, the level of primary health care centres readiness recorded to be high, which indicates that primary health care centres are ready for implementation of the electronic health record system, and in this context, management structure, organizational process, financial recourses and administrative support play significant roles to increase the project success rate.

Determining Current Medications Usage within a Cohort of Patients in the UK-A Descriptive Retrospective Study.

Swansea University's United Kingdom (UK) Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Register is a platform that contains information on more than 17,600 people with MS living in the UK. The register has been in operation since 2011 and represents comprehensive information about people living with MS in the UK. It is considered the first register of its kind that can link information from patients to clinical data and has been established to answer different information needs about MS. Aim: To elucidate the trends in patterns of medicines currently used by people with MS in the UK MS register. Methods: This study follows an exploratory descriptive design using the UK MS register as data resource. A number of 4516 people completed the EQ-5D survey out of 8736 people who have given their consent to answer online questionnaires which represents around 52% of the register total population. Descriptive analysis and tests were performed with SPSS to address the research objectives. Results: There are several medicine names entered by people with MS in their profiles. These medicines are used either to manage MS symptoms or to treat its associated complications. Among the medicine types revealed in this study, disease modifying drugs (DMDs), muscle relaxants, and anticonvulsants are the medicine types mainly used by people with MS followed by antidepressant and antianxiety medicines. Conclusions: From the antidepressants used most widely, amitriptyline was chosen as a subject medicine for further investigation in the remaining studies of this research due to its high frequency use, the elevated depression rates discovered among people with MS who seek information on it online, and the high online content noted on websites about this medicine.