Barriers to implementation of a clinical information system in an emergency department

Utilization of clinical information software at Departments of Anaesthesiology and Resuscitation becomes more and more frequent. In the Czech Republic, there is just one implementation. This study presents a technical description of the system specifying technical parameters, the way of data transmission, the integration of the system with the hospital information system, inputs, outputs, and its behaviour in practical operation. This problem is topical and many emergency departments investigate information system implemetation problems, as can be seen from the number of papers published on the topic recently [1, 2]. We describe an implementation in a Prague university hospital. The essential part consists in an analysis of barriers that emerged during the implementation, and a suggestion of how they could be eliminated. Namely, barriers of the technical, organizational, personnel and financial character were discovered and discussed. The problems were solved by the project management and change management methods that showed to be an effective tool. Finally, the main benefits of the implementation of a clinical information system at the Department of Anaesthesiology and Resuscitation are summarized.