Identification and Prioritization Risks of Health Information Technology Services Outsourcing: A Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Rita Rezaee 1
Sahar Zare 2
Mohammad Shirdeli 2
1 Associate Professor, Education Management, Department of Health Information Technology, School of Management and Medical Informatics, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran
2 MSc, Health Information Technology, Department of Health Information Technology, School of Management and Medical Informatics, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran
Abstract
Introduction: According to constant changes and the growing trend of information technology and its necessity, most of the organizations tend to outsource this part of their activities. According to health organization importance, in this study, risks of health information technology outsourcing and the causes which make them appear were identified and important risks were prioritized; so, by managing relative risk, we can take a step in performing health information technology service outsourcing successfully in health field in the country.Methods: This was a cross-sectional practical study in term of purposive and a descriptive-analytical in term of research method using Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) in 2017. The study population consisted of technology experts who had at least 2 years of experience of working with Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Iran. This study was done in three main stages; first, we reviewed previous articles and health information technology outsourcing risks were extracted. Then, we used Delphi technique for identifying and selecting suitable factors; and in the last stage, we assessed and prioritized risk factors using FAHP.Results: FAHP showed that prioritization of main risk factors by their weight respectively consist of supplier (0.255), contract (0.235), technology (0.146), financial (0.144), security (0.090), and outsourcer (0.013).Conclusion: Provider risks was the most important risk and after that contract risk, technological, financial, privacy, and outsourcer risk were important, respectively. Most of the experts expressed that provider risks could cause other risks.

Keywords

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Health Information Management
Volume 14, Issue 4 - Serial Number 4
Autumn 2017
Pages 167-173