The Status of the Emergency Information and Communication System in Iran's Health Sector

Abstract

Background: Accurate and timely information and communication are vital to adequately prepare individual health organizations for emergency events. The current article investigated health-related communication and information systems for emergency management in Iran. Methods: The present study was conducted in 2009 with a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach. Simple random purposeful sampling was used to select 214 health service managers. The subjects were surveyed using a valid and reliable questionnaire. Moreover, 65 semi-structured interviews were also conducted with public health and therapeutic affairs managers who were responsible for emergency management. Data was analyzed using SPSS and framework analysis. The maximum mean score was 5. Results: The mean score of sharing incident information, registering internal and external hazards, creating emergency management databases, and introducing a formal system for logging and recording information were 3.06, 2.66, 2.61, and 2.87, respectively. 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. Conclusion: 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 systems. Keywords: Emergency Management; Information; Communication; Information Systems.