Evaluating the importance of digital tools or approaches to hospital performance using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP)-Delphi approach

Background: Since many digital tools or approaches can be implemented, hospital managers need to select suitable ones to digitalize hospitals within the budget limitation to achieve expected hospital performance. Previous studies in this aspect are limited; hence, the results of this study contribute to the knowledge body of hospital digitalization. Methods: The analytic hierarchy process (AHP)-Delphi process using a conference was organized to attain two goals: (I) to identify and weigh the most important hospital performance indicators, and (II) to use these performance indicators as strategic criteria to determine how much digital tools or approaches contribute to hospital performance. Results: The results show that hospital performance can be measured with 7 performance indicators which can be improved by the application of 10 digital tools or approaches. For, patient centricity support, 4 tools or approaches are strongly recommended: telemedicine, online real-time interactions, 4.0 medical infrastructure, and tools for connecting with other outside institutions’ information technology (IT) system. For hospital management support, 2 tools or approaches are highly suggested: Picture Achieving and Communication System (PACS), Laboratory Information System (LIS), Radiology Information System (RIS) [Health Level Seven (HL7)], and electronic medical records (EMRs). Conclusions: The results help hospital managers understand the importance of each digital tool or approach to the hospital’s performance. Hence, they can have a suitable selection of digital tools or approaches to enhance hospital performance. The generalization of the research results is limited because of the small sample size of invited experts. Further research can enlarge the sample size with hospitals of all scales, different departments of hospitals, different healthcare professionals to have more generalized results.