Evidence map›Paper›PMID 22189035›Full record

ArticleBMC medical informatics and decision making2011

The status of IT service management in health care - ITIL® in selected European countries.

Alexander Hoerbst, Werner O Hackl, Roland Blomer, Elske Ammenwerth

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in BMC medical informatics and decision making, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed
3.4field-weighted citation impact, top 7% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

4 citing papers in PubMed, 31 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. A Method for Enabling Digital Health Technologies in Clinical and Translational Research at an Academic Medical Center.AMIA Joint Summits on Translational Science proceedings. AMIA Joint Summits on Translational Science · 2025
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Alexander HoerbstResearch Division eHealth and Telemedicine, UMIT - University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Eduard-Wallnoefer-Zentrum 1, Hall in Tirol, Austria. alexander.hoerbst@umit.at
Werner O Hackl
Roland Blomer
Elske Ammenwerth
UMIT - Private Universität für Gesundheitswissenschaften, Medizinische Informatik und Technik · AT

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundDue to the strained financial situation in the healthcare sector, hospitals and other healthcare providers are facing an increasing pressure to improve their efficiency and to reduce costs. These trends challenge health care organizations to introduce innovative information technology (IT) based supportive processes. To guarantee that IT supports the clinical processes perfectly, IT must be managed proactively. However, until now, there is only very few research on IT service management especially on ITIL® implementations in the health care context.

methodsThe current study aims at exploring knowledge about and acceptance of IT service management (especially ITIL®) in hospitals in Austria and its neighboring regions Bavaria (Germany), Slovakia, South Tyrol (Italy) and Switzerland. Therefore highly standardized interviews with the respective head of information technology (CIO, IT manager) were conducted for selected hospitals from the different regions. In total 75 hospitals were interviewed. Data gathered was analyzed using descriptive statistics and where necessary methods of qualitative content analysis.

resultsIn most regions, two-thirds or more of the participating IT managers claim to be familiar with the concepts of IT service management and of ITIL®. IT managers expect from ITIL® mostly better IT services, followed by an increased productivity and a reduction of IT cost. But only five hospitals said to have implemented at least parts of ITIL®, and eight hospitals stated to be planning to do this in the next two years. When it comes to ITIL®, Switzerland and Bavaria seem to be ahead of the other countries. There, the highest levels of knowledge, the highest number of implementations or plans of an implementation as well as the highest number of ITIL® certified staff members were observed.

conclusionThe results collected through this study indicate that the idea of IT services and IT service management is still not widely recognized in hospitals in the countries and regions of the study. It is also indicated that hospitals need further assistance in order to be able to successfully implement ITIL®. Overall, research on IT service management and ITIL® in health care is rare.

Indexed as

Delivery of Health CareDisease ManagementEuropeHumansInformation ScienceInformation Services

Identifiers

PMID22189035
PMCPMC3276449
OpenAlexW2010168808

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.