Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 Department of Health Information Technology of Seyyed Mostafa Khomeini Hospital of Tabas, Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Tabas, Iran
2 Health Management and Economics Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, School of Economics and Administrative Sciences, University of Isfahan, Isfahan
Abstract
Organizations try to outsource their activities as much as possible in order to prevent the problems
and use organizational capabilities in Information Technology (IT) field.The purpose of this paper
was first, to express the effective criteria for selecting suppliers of IT services, second, to explain
the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing IT in hospitals. This study was narrative
review, which search was conducted with the help of libraries, books, conference proceedings,
and databases of Science Direct, PubMed, Proquest, Springer, and SID (Scientific Information
Database). In our searches, we employed the following keywords and their combinations:
Outsourcing, information technology, hospital, decision making, and criteria. The preliminary
search resulted in 120 articles, which were published between 2000 and 2013 during July 2013.
After a careful analysis of the content of each paper, a total of 46 papers were selected based
on their relevancy. The criteria and sub‑criteria influencing outsourcing decisions in Iranian
hospitals were identified in six major categories including administrative issues, issues related
to the service/product, technology factors, environmental factors, risks, and economic factors
associated with 15 sub‑criteria containing business integration, dependence on suppliers, human
resources, focus on core competencies, facilities and physical capital, innovation, quality, speed
of service delivery, flexibility, market capabilities, geographical location, security, management
control, cost, and financial capability. Identify the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing
and effective criteria in IT services supplier selection causes the managers be able to take the
most appropriate decision to select supplier of IT services. This is a general review on influencing
criteria for electing of supplier of information technology services in hospitals.
Keywords
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