Effect of Information Technology on EDs Performance Indicators

Background: Information Technology (IT) had innovations in the health sector that could facilitate the performance of the health service providers. Because of its sensitivity the emergency department should be organized appropriately and the process of service provision in this department should be precisely defined and determined to provide better services to patients with effective management. Hospitals performance indicators as well as are the most important tools to show the function of this department, which should be examined regularly and during the specified period. The aim of this study was, first, to identify the emergency department performance indicators and second, to determine the impact of IT on these indicators. Method: This study was unsystematic-review study. The literature was searched of libraries, books, conference proceedings, data bank, and also search engines available at Google, Google scholar. In our searches, we employed the following keywords and their combinations: indicator, performance, evaluation, emergency and IT in the searching areas of title, keywords, abstract, and full text. In this study, more than 100 articles and reports were collected and 34 of them were selected based on their relevancy. Results: According to the survey, it was observed that some of the indicators mentioned in the articles were common. A number of indicators include waiting time, Length of triage, Length of Visit, ED Length of Stay, ED admissions, Number of Tests and Images Ordered, ED Mortality and Percentage of unsuccessful CPR. Also the literature review showed that health information systems could have an impact on increasing the efficiency of the emergency department. Conclusion: Checking the performance indicators are one of the most important duties of the emergency department and hospital manager that can help them to evaluate the emergency department and followed its status in terms of planning or scientific researches. These indicators are also used to predict the trend of works in the emergency departments.