Assessment of Readiness across Tertiary/University Teaching Hospitals in a Developing Country Nigeria to Implement Sustainable Healthcare Digital Transformation Programmes and Projects

Abstract

Background The gains of healthcare's digital transformation have become phenomenal! Several healthcare institutions and providers across the globe witnessed massive integration of digital technologies (particularly during the COVID-19 crisis) to optimise healthcare service delivery. Given its massive benefits, it is also important to note that the success of digital transformation programmes and projects within any context, including healthcare, could largely depend on the readiness of the implementation environment to receive, adopt, adapt, or integrate such programmes and projects. The goal of this research was therefore to conduct an assessment of readiness across three tertiary/university hospitals in a developing country, Nigeria, to implement sustainable healthcare digital transformation programmes and projects. Method This research was based on quantitative methods. A survey based on a 5-point Likert Scale was distributed to clinical stakeholders across these institutions on the readiness of the institutions and stakeholders to implement healthcare digital transformation programmes and projects. A sample population of 600 clinicians was surveyed. Specifically, the survey evaluated the perceptions of clinicians on different dimensions of readiness measurements. The Data analysis and visualisation were done using SPSS and MS Excel. Result Out of the 600 clinicians surveyed across the three tertiary/university teaching hospitals, 580 usable questionnaires for data analysis were retrieved, which was indicative of a 96.67% success rate. On the dimension of ‘vision clarity’, 90.40% of the clinicians posited that a computer-based system was indeed needed to improve their clinical procedures. But when asked if all staff in their units were highly computer literate to support digital transformation projects, only 30% of the respondents believed that staff were highly computer literate. When this question was reframed and the respondents were asked to confirm that staff in their unit really had low computer skills, again, only 36.30% of respondents thought otherwise. Conclusion Our result clearly shows that low digital literacy was a major challenge across the hospitals surveyed. And without a significant level of computer literacy, there would hardly be any healthcare digital transformation project that would be sustainable. There is a need for concerted effort in the area of massive training of the clinical workforce in this area.