The Critical Role of Hospital Information Systems in Digital Health Innovation Projects

Societal demand and political support still drive researchers and practitioners to work in numerous initiatives to create Digital Innovations (DI) in healthcare. Despite all support, the problem of unsuccessful or not-satisfying translation of project outputs into the healthcare reality remains. One critical aspect is the integration of a DI into evolved Hospital Information Systems (HIS). As DI projects often are conducted in practice research consortia, such projects can provide close insights into real-world settings. Therefore, a rigor analysis is necessary, which we perform using the Action Design Research approach that helps to analyze the role of HIS in DI projects for healthcare. The main contribution of this paper is the detailed description of a context-specific framework for the formalization of learning plus a systematic presentation of enablers and barriers of DI projects in healthcare. The framework matches both a project management perspective by considering different stages of a DI project and an interoperability perspective as an overall key factor for successful implementation.