BackgroundDigital transformation in health care is being driven by the need to improve quality, reduce costs, and enhance the patient experience of health care delivery. It does this through both the direct intervention of technology to create new diagnostic and treatment opportunities and also through the improved use of information to create more engaging and efficient care processes.ObjectiveIn a modern digital hospital, improved clinical and business processes are often driven through enhancing the information flows that support them. To understand an organization’s ability to transform their information flows requires a clear understanding of the capabilities of an organization’s information technology infrastructure. To date, hospital facilities have been challenged by the absence of uniform ways of describing this infrastructure that would enable them to benchmark where they are and create a vision of where they would like to be. While there is an industry assessment measure for electronic medical record (EMR) adoption using the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Analytics EMR Adoption Model, there is no equivalent for assessing the infrastructure and associated technology capabilities for digital hospitals. Our aim is to fill this gap, as hospital administrators and clinicians need to know how and why to invest in information infrastructure to support health information technology that benefits patient safety and care.MethodsBased on an operational framework for the Capability Maturity Model, devised specifically for health care, we applied information use characteristics to define eight information systems maturity levels and associated technology infrastructure capabilities. These levels are mapped to user experiences to create a linkage between technology infrastructure and experience outcomes. Subsequently, specific technology capabilities are deconstructed to identify the technology features required to meet each maturity level.ResultsThe resulting assessment framework clearly defines 164 individual capabilities across the five technology domains and eight maturity levels for hospital infrastructure. These level-dependent capabilities characterize the ability of the hospital’s information infrastructure to support the business of digital hospitals including clinical and administrative requirements. Further, it allows the addition of a scoring calculation for each capability, domain, and the overall infrastructure, and it identifies critical requirements to meet each of the maturity levels.ConclusionsThis new Infrastructure Maturity Assessment framework will allow digital hospitals to assess the maturity of their infrastructure in terms of their digital transformation aligning to business outcomes and supporting the desired level of clinical and operational competency. It provides the ability to establish an international benchmark of hospital infrastructure performance, while identifying weaknesses in current infrastructure capability. Further, it provides a business case justificat...

Background Health care provider organizations are complex and dynamic environments. Consequently, how the physical and social environment of such organizations interact with an individual is a primary driver of an individual’s experience. Increasingly, the capabilities required for them to successfully interact with those within their care are critically dependent on the information infrastructure they have in place, which enables people, both patients and staff, to work optimally together to deliver their clinical and operational objectives. Objective This study aims to design a framework to address the challenge of how to assemble information systems in health care to support an improved sense of coherence for patients, as well as potentially innovate patients’ experiences, by connecting and orchestrating the synergy among people, processes, and systems. Methods It is necessary to understand the needs of health care providers and patients to address this challenge at a level relevant to information process design and technology development. This paper describes the design science research method used to combine the sense of coherence, which is a core concept within the Antonosky salutogenic approach to health and well-being, with an established information infrastructure maturity framework, demonstrating the coalescence of 2 distinct conceptual perspectives on care delivery. This paper provides an approach to defining a positive and supportive health care experience and linking this to the capabilities of an information- and technology-enabled environment. Results This research delivers a methodology for describing the patient experience in a form relevant to information infrastructure design, articulating a pathway from information infrastructure to patient experience. It proposes that patient experience can be viewed pragmatically in terms of the established sense of coherence concept, with its ability to identify and guide resources to modulate a patient’s environmental stressors. This research establishes a framework for determining and optimizing the capability of a facility’s information infrastructure to support the sense of coherence defined by the experiences of its patients. Conclusions This groundbreaking research provides a framework for health care provider organizations to understand and assess the ability of their information infrastructure to support and improve the patient experience. The tool assists providers in defining their technology-dependent operational goals around patient experience and, consequently, in identifying the information capabilities needed to support these goals. The results demonstrate how a fundamental shift in thinking about the use of information infrastructure can transform the patient experience. This study details an approach to describing information infrastructure within an experience-oriented framework that enables the impact of technology on experience to be designed explicitly. The contribution to knowledge is a new perspective on modeling how information infrastructure can contribute to supportive health-promoting environments. Furthermore, it may significantly affect the design and deployment of future digital infrastructures in health care.

BACKGROUND The ways in which healthcare’s physical and social environments interact with an individual, patient or care provider, is a primary driver of their experience within that organisation. Healthcare provider organisations are complex and dynamic environments. Increasingly, the capabilities required to successfully interact with their constituents are critically dependent on the information infrastructure they have in place that enables people, both patients and staff, to optimally work together in the delivery of their clinical and operational objectives. OBJECTIVE The challenge is how to assemble the information systems in healthcare to support and potentially innovate patients' experience through connecting and orchestrating the synergy between people, processes, and systems. METHODS It is necessary to understand the needs of healthcare providers and patients to address this challenge at a level that is relevant to information process design and technology development. This paper describes the design science research that combines the Sense of Coherence theory with established information infrastructure maturity, demonstrating the coalescence of two distinct conceptual frameworks. This research provides a method to define a positive and supportive experience and link this to the support of an information technology environment. RESULTS This research results in a methodology for describing patient experience in a form that is relevant to information infrastructure design, articulating a pathway from information infrastructure to patient experience. It proposes that patient experience can be pragmatically viewed in terms of the established Sense of Coherence theory with its ability to identify and guide resources to modulate a patient’s environmental stressors. The research establishes a framework for determining and optimizing the capability of a facility’s information infrastructure to support the Sense of Coherence defined experiences of its patients. CONCLUSIONS This research provides a method for healthcare provider organisations to better understand and assess the ability of their current information infrastructure to support and improve the patient experience. The tool assists providers to define their technology dependent operational goals around patient experience and consequently identify the information capabilities needed and the associated systems to support this. This paper details an approach to describing information infrastructure within an experience-oriented framework that enables the impact of technology on experience to be explicitly designed. The contribution to knowledge is a new perspective on modelling how information infrastructure can contribute to supportive health-promoting environments.

BACKGROUND Digital transformation in health care is being driven by the need to improve quality, reduce costs, and enhance the patient experience of health care delivery. It does this through both the direct intervention of technology to create new diagnostic and treatment opportunities and also through the improved use of information to create more engaging and efficient care processes. OBJECTIVE In a modern digital hospital, improved clinical and business processes are often driven through enhancing the information flows that support them. To understand an organization’s ability to transform their information flows requires a clear understanding of the capabilities of an organization’s information technology infrastructure. To date, hospital facilities have been challenged by the absence of uniform ways of describing this infrastructure that would enable them to benchmark where they are and create a vision of where they would like to be. While there is an industry assessment measure for electronic medical record (EMR) adoption using the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Analytics EMR Adoption Model, there is no equivalent for assessing the infrastructure and associated technology capabilities for digital hospitals. Our aim is to fill this gap, as hospital administrators and clinicians need to know how and why to invest in information infrastructure to support health information technology that benefits patient safety and care. METHODS Based on an operational framework for the Capability Maturity Model, devised specifically for health care, we applied information use characteristics to define eight information systems maturity levels and associated technology infrastructure capabilities. These levels are mapped to user experiences to create a linkage between technology infrastructure and experience outcomes. Subsequently, specific technology capabilities are deconstructed to identify the technology features required to meet each maturity level. RESULTS The resulting assessment framework clearly defines 164 individual capabilities across the five technology domains and eight maturity levels for hospital infrastructure. These level-dependent capabilities characterize the ability of the hospital’s information infrastructure to support the business of digital hospitals including clinical and administrative requirements. Further, it allows the addition of a scoring calculation for each capability, domain, and the overall infrastructure, and it identifies critical requirements to meet each of the maturity levels. CONCLUSIONS This new Infrastructure Maturity Assessment framework will allow digital hospitals to assess the maturity of their infrastructure in terms of their digital transformation aligning to business outcomes and supporting the desired level of clinical and operational competency. It provides the ability to establish an international benchmark of hospital infrastructure performance, while identifying weaknesses in current infrastructure capability. Further, it provides a business case justification through increased functionality and a roadmap for subsequent digital transformation while moving from one maturity level to the next. As such, this framework will encourage and guide information-driven, digital transformation in health care.