An investigation on the health information system in the public sector of mauritius

With the substantial improvement in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) many healthcare institutions are making significant investment on these technologies which proved to have positive impact on health outcomes for patients, such as reduced error rates and improved patient safety as well as time savings for health professionals. The objectives of this study are to provide an investigation on the Health Information System (HIS) in the public sector of Mauritius and to gauge the perceptions of health professionals about the benefits and challenges of HIS. A cross-sectional approach was adopted to elicit relevant data among different cadres randomly chosen from the five regional hospitals and two mediclinics in Mauritius. One of the main findings of this study is that each department within the healthcare institutions used computers in their own means. Very few and scattered applications are used by some units to perform routine tasks within their workplace while the other units hardly make use of computers. This study provided an understanding and the need to focus on the right strategy to enhance and scale-up the use of HIS into healthcare delivery to choose on the way forward.