Abstract:
One of the key responsibilities of a government is to provide efficient healthcare
services to its citizens that are better and affordable. In its 2011-2015 National Health
Development Plan, the Burundian government acknowledges that the use of health
information systems is effective in the planning, monitoring-evaluation at all levels of
the healthcare sector. In Burundi today, patients’ health records are collected using
handwritten forms and stored in filing cabinets after which the statistical analysis is
done manually before the reports are submitted to the ministry after a month. In
addition, there are insufficient standards in gathering the data, irregularities of surveys,
incompatibility of internal media, poor completion of data collection tools, lack of
archival systems for data and feedback at the various levels. These challenges are the
origin of the delay in gathering information for analysis in order to gain useful insights.
Evidence based research and practice shows that adoption of a Big Data Analytics
(BDA) system that comprises a centralized Electronic Health Records (EHR) database
and a real-time data analysis system that extracts useful insights from the medical data
can significantly address these challenges. Unfortunately, BDA adoption models and
automated assessment tools that address the Burundian context is lacking not to
mention the dearth caused by researchers’ predominant focus on the technical aspects
and system development. Therefore, this study’s aim was to propose a BDA system
adoption model for improving healthcare services in Burundi’s public hospitals. This
was achieved by examining the factors that influence the adoption of BDA in public
healthcare services using the Technology Organization Environment (TOE) adoption
theory through a desk research and investigating the methods used by the ministry of
health to collect, store and analyze medical data. A sample of 9 public hospitals of
Burundi were selected from which 6 responded positively. Semi-structured interviews
accompanied by observations and documents review were used to collect information
for the assessment of the readiness of Burundi in adopting a BDA system in its public
hospitals using the ARAT an automated web-based assessment tool. Lastly a tailored
BDA system adoption model for improving Burundi’s public healthcare services was
developed. The findings showed a high level of readiness in Burundi’s public hospitals
for adoption of BDA systems. The country has adequate telecommunication
infrastructures and has started using information systems like OpenClinic and DHIS2
in some hospitals. But there is still a lot of improvements to make in order to assure
that the adoption is successful. The tailored adoption model developed points out the
need of a private network that interconnects all the public hospitals with the ministry
of health, the implementation of OpenClinic in all the public hospitals, implementation
of standardized health records system and policies, increase ICT training programs for
the staff and allow patients to access their health records. Overall, all the objectives of
the study were met.