School of Health Services and Information Management, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
J Med Syst. 2011 Aug;35(4):591-7. doi: 10.1007/s10916-009-9396-0. Epub 2009 Nov 19.
Disasters are fortunately rare occurrences. However, accurate and timely information and communication are vital to adequately prepare individual health organizations for such events. The current article investigates the health related communication and information systems for emergency management in Iran. A mixed qualitative and quantitative methodology was used in this study. A sample of 230 health service managers was surveyed using a questionnaire and 65 semi-structured interviews were also conducted with public health and therapeutic affairs managers who were responsible for emergency management. A range of problems were identified including fragmentation of information, lack of local databases, lack of clear information strategy and lack of a formal system for logging disaster related information at regional or local level. Recommendations were made for improving the national emergency management information and communication system. The findings have implications for health organizations in developing and developed countries especially in the Middle East. Creating disaster related information databases, creating protocols and standards, setting an information strategy, training staff and hosting a center for information system in the Ministry of Health to centrally manage and share the data could improve the current information system.
灾难是幸运的罕见事件。然而，准确和及时的信息和通信对于充分准备个别卫生组织应对此类事件至关重要。本文研究了伊朗紧急情况下的卫生相关通信和信息系统。本研究采用混合定性和定量方法。使用问卷对 230 名卫生服务管理人员进行了抽样调查，并对负责紧急事务管理的公共卫生和治疗事务管理人员进行了 65 次半结构化访谈。确定了一系列问题，包括信息碎片化、缺乏本地数据库、缺乏明确的信息战略以及缺乏在区域或地方一级记录与灾害相关信息的正式系统。为改进国家紧急情况管理信息和通信系统提出了建议。这些发现对发展中国家和发达国家的卫生组织都有影响，特别是在中东地区。建立与灾难相关的信息数据库、制定协议和标准、制定信息战略、培训工作人员以及在卫生部设立信息系统中心，以便集中管理和共享数据，可以改进当前的信息系统。
