scholarly journals Assessment of Turnover Intention and Associated Factors Among Health Information Technology Professionals Working in Public Health Institution, South Gondar Zone, Northwest Ethiopia

Author(s):  
Libsuye Yalgaw Zimamu ◽  
Gashaw Mehiret Wubet

Abstract Background: Place of work turnover is critical to health information technology professionals (HIT) and health information systems as it indications dropping skilled and competent health information professionals. However, the progress of surviving plans requests a strong acceptance of the place of work variables that either inspire health information staff to persist active or principal them to dispensation their recent working organization.Objective: This study was deliberate to measure intention to leave and associated factors among health information technology professionals working in south Gondar zone public health institution, Amhara Region, EthiopiaMethods: A cross-sectional study was carried out among 122 health information technology professionals. Data were collected using structured pre-tested self-administered questionnaires from September 1 to October 1/2020. The collected data were entered into Epi-info Version 7 and exported to SPSS version 20 software for analysis. Bivariate and multivariable logistic regression was employed to detect influences associated with dependent and independent variables. Odds ratio (OR), with 95% CI and p< 0.05 were computed to determine the level of significance.Results: Based on the operational definition the total score of intent to leave health information technology professionals from the organization was 64.8% [95% CI: 56.6-72.9]. Among the applicant variables for multivariable analysis 3 variables like the marital status of the respondents [OR: 0.49(0.231-1.042)p: value 0.000], performance appraisal of the respondents [OR: 7.0(2.66-18.45) p: value 0.000] and recognition of the respondents [OR: .447(.783-3.513) p: value 0.002] had to have a significant association with intention to leave and performance appraisal of the respondents were significantly associated 8.29 times [AOR: 8.29(3.002-22.889)p: value 0.001] to leave of the respondents from the working organization.Conclusion and recommendation: The magnitude of health information professionals' intention to leave was found to be high, which can extremely affect the coverage and quality of information management and use of information for decisions in the zone. Health care policy-makers and hospital managers need to develop and institutionalize evidence-based retention strategies taking into consideration the predictors of health information professionals’ intention to leave.

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. i28-i28
Author(s):  
N Hassan ◽  
R Slight ◽  
S P Slight

Abstract Introduction Antimicrobial resistance is a global health problem, especially in developing countries. Antimicrobial Stewardship Programmes (AMS) have been shown to be effective at reducing antimicrobial resistance and hospital patient stays. Health information technology (HIT) can support Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT) through more accurate diagnosis and management of infectious diseases. Aim To evaluate the knowledge and attitude of Egyptian healthcare professionals towards the application of HIT to optimize OPAT. Methods Healthcare professionals who worked in either private or public sectors of Egyptian healthcare system were emailed and asked if they would be willing to complete an electronic questionnaire (using google forms). One reminder was sent by email each week for two weeks (two in total) from the first invitation. The survey was laid out in four sections. The first section included specific details about the healthcare professional’s current employment and role, the second related to HIT services available in their organisations, the third covered their training in HIT and antimicrobial stewardship programmes, and the fourth included their use of HIT to optimize OPAT. Ethical approval was obtained from National Heart Institute, Egypt. Descriptive analysis was carried out for all the variables. One-way ANOVA testing at level of significance P-value &lt;0.05, was used to compare numerical variables. SPSS version 26 was used for statistical analysis. Results Three hundred and eighty-five healthcare professionals were invited to respond to the questionnaire. (The response rate was 75.34% (290)). Of these, 152 (52.6%) were pharmacists, 134 (46.4%) physicians, and 3 (1%) nurses, and many participants (30.8%) had between 6 to 10 years of experience working in either outpatient or in-patient units. Only 15.2% of respondents mentioned that they have access to OPAT in their organizations, 51.2% did not have the service, while 33.6% responded that they did not know if the service was available. However, 27.3% had a training on ASP and 18.3% had a training on HIT. Mean scores for both knowledge (14.31±5.49) and attitude (14.67±2.53) were significantly higher in professionals who had received training in HIT (p = 0.003 & 0.006 respectively). However, scores for attitude were better than scores for knowledge. Conclusions In developing countries, HIT applications in OPAT are still in their infancy with only a few organisations adopting them. Egyptian healthcare professionals showed positive attitudes towards HIT use, especially when their knowledge was improved through training. Two strengths of this study include our high response rate and the wide breadth of different healthcare professionals who responded from both private and public healthcare settings. However, being a questionnaire, some questions were left unanswered and some respondents may not have been aware of their reasons for a particular answer. That said, this study has important implications for practice, with more awareness amongst healthcare professionals required on the availability of HIT services in their hospitals and how further training may be needed on the applications of HIT in optimizing OPAT.


In this paper the author describes work towards developing an integrative framework for educating health information technology professionals about technology risk. The framework considers multiple sources of risk to health data quality and integrity that can result from the use of health information technology (HIT) and can be used to teach health professional students about these risks when using health technologies. This framework encompasses issues and problems that may arise from varied sources, including intentional alterations (e.g. resulting from hacking and security breaches) as well as unintentional breaches and corruption of data (e.g. resulting from technical problems, or from technology-induced errors). The framework that is described has several levels: the level of human factors and usability of HIT, the level of monitoring of security and accuracy, the HIT architectural level, the level of operational and physical checks, the level of healthcare quality assurance policies and the data risk management strategies level. Approaches to monitoring and simulation of risk are also discussed, including a discussion of an innovative approach to monitoring potential quality issues. This is followed by a discussion of the application (using computer simulations) to educate both students and health information technology professionals about the impact and spread of technology-induced and related types of data errors involving HIT.


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