A Case Study of the Health Information System in Family Medicine Practice in Canton Sarajevo

Background: Family medicine is defined as continuous, comprehensive medical care of the patient in the context of the family and the community. Continuous patient care includes prevention, diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic diseases and palliative care. Caring for individuals during different diseases and stages in the life cycle, understanding the role of the family in disease and using community resources makes family medicine unique among medical disciplines. With the development of new technologies, there was a need for changes in the work and introduction of the Health Information System, in all areas of medicine, including family medicine. Objective: The objectives of this study are to analyze CHIS functions in family medicine, analyze CHIS data reports, complaints, and suggestions for improvement, and then, based on the results of these analyses, to offer recommendations for future development of the CHIS family medicine module. Methods: This article represents a qualitative, interpretative case study of the implementation of the CHIS in family medicine in Public Institution Health Centre of Sarajevo Canton conducted by a group of physicians using three primary data sources: medical experts’ analysis of the CHIS content, reports available in the CHIS about the number and type of services, analysis of written medical doctor and nurse complaints, and suggestions for improving the CHIS. Although qualitative data analysis predominated, quantitative data analysis was also employed. Results and Discussion: It is crucial that healthcare professionals who utilize HIS have the opportunity to provide feedback on the system and suggest modifications. The main results show that CHI is widely used in family medicine and that employees in this department provide purposeful suggestions to improve CHI, as well as that a good cooperation between the software company and the user exist. Experts in software should view these suggestions as useful information and adopt them to enhance the system so as to increase customer satisfaction and enhance the quality of health care. Health informatics as a separate scientific discipline began to be effective in academic institutions at the end of the 70’s by the presentation of actual accomplishments in this area in under and postgraduate education at biomedical faculties. The Central Health Information System (CHIS) in Sarajevo Canton was implemented in 2014 but was not fully integrated and was incompletely used at certain levels of health care. Conclusion: Thanks to the agility of the company rapid implementation of new software modules enabled the organizational transformation of the Sarajevo Canton health network.