The Relationships Between the Extent of Information Systems Adoption and Service Performance in the Public Hospital in Malaysia

Hospitals must implement information systems that can quantify every aspect of disease management, can track and preserve patient outcomes data, can capture information across multiple business segments, and can even provide predictive modeling formulas (Grazier, 1998). The need for technology investment in hospitals is clear. Technology is the key component of efforts to meet new standards and to ensure that those standards translate into meaningful clinical, operational and financial outcomes. That is, in addition to routine information demands, administrators often require specific types of information to address specific management issues. Because the quantity and types of information needed are constantly changing, keeping up with such change is an administrative challenge. At the same time, external demands for information from governmental agencies, insurers and so on are also on the rise and are also dynamic. These shifting dynamics are rapidly changing the healthcare industry. As Austin (1992) notes, the changing nature of the healthcare industry necessitates an increasing reliance on good management information. Generally, higher productivity and quality and efficient service would result from the effective operations of organizations. It is widely discovered by the researchers that there is a gap in the effective operations between public sector with those in the private sector, therefore, there is no doubt that government is still lacking behind in terms of productivity, quality and efficient service.