Key Issues of Portuguese Health Information Systems

Using Information Systems(IS) to support the collection, storage and analysis of data, information and knowledge is adding value to a complex field such as healthcare. Information provided by healthcare facilities should be properly used, in order to provide better treatments to patients and to ensure that administration of healthcare facilities is done correctly. The main goal of this article is to present and characterize the key issues which affects the daily activities of information systems managers in hospital context of the Portuguese national healthcare services and to propose improvements scenarios as a positive answer to all the presented conclusions. Semi-structured interviews were used to support this research which have counted with a group of largely experienced healthcare professionals. Contributions on IS policies in health, human resources, modernization of systems and organizational relationships are presented as result.