Page 43 - IJSA, Vol. 6, No 2, 2023

International Journal of Science Annals, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2023
рrint ISSN: 2617-2682; online ISSN: 2707-3637; DOI:10.26697/ijsa

Introduction
Information and communication technology (ICT) is contact person, mostly from the ICT directorate. For
universally regarded as a vital tool for improving anonymity, the questionnaire on the Survey Monkey
business competitiveness and economic growth of a was designed in such a way that respondents only
country as it has the potential to improve the quality, needed to click on the submission button and the filled
safety, and efficiency of service delivery. Generally, questionnaire was captured on Survey Monkey database
there is a consensus that ICT has significant effects on with the respondents’ particulars on completion of the
the productivity of firms, but these effects can only be questionnaire, the filled datasets were exported to the
realized if, and when, ICTs are widely spread and used Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS v25) for
efficiently. analysis. The questionnaire was designed in such a way
ICT has the ability to help people collect, store, manage, that neither the particulars of the individual respondents
and distribute knowledge. For instance, in the healthcare nor those of the health institution were asked, so
domain the use of information technology (IT) has anonymity was ensured. After data had been captured on
improved communication between medical personnel the Survey Monkey database, the questionnaire was
and patients (Djock, 2023). Previously, patients would exported to SPSS. However, for easy analysis the
queue for hours to get help in hospitals as everything questionnaire was coded in such a way that the
was done manually. This trend has, however, changed constructs and their attributes are shorted to carry
with the increasing use of automated healthcare systems meaning while observing originality of the question item
such as Hospital Management Systems (HMS) that have and the construct.
increased the speed at which patients’ information is The population of this study was health personnel in
accessed and retrieved (Khan et al., 2014). The use of IT public hospitals that are using HMS in Gauteng
and its application has propelled developments that have Province, South Africa. This study identified three
improved service delivery in all sectors, inclusive of public hospitals that were already using HMS.
public health. Recent developments in remote healthcare According to Massyn et al.’s (2020) report, South
systems have witnessed significant interest from the IT African hospitals are human resource constrained and on
industry, which provides universal and easily average, there are between 30 to 50 medical personnel
deployable healthcare systems (Djock, 2023; Profetto et and health workers in district hospitals and slightly more
al., 2022). numbers in provincial hospitals. Hence, the population
Katuu (2018) asserts that well-formed hospital of the study based on the district hospital level was 150
management workflows involve important decision- respondents.
making that should be done efficiently and quickly. By using the Krejice and Morgan’s tool for determining
Katuu (2018) indicates that it is becoming difficult in the sample size of a finite population, the derived sample
many health sector facilities to improve efficiency size for this study was 108. Based on this sample size, a
without the use of HMS. The HMS assists in the total of 130 survey links were distributed and out of this
handling of the different directions of hospital 98 completed questionnaires were returned though 83
workflows, and it helps in managing smooth healthcare were usable.
performance along with administrative, medical, legal, Research is conducted to collect relevant information
and financial control (Djock, 2023). Further still, HMS that can be used to solve the identified research problem
is essential in managing automated operations of the (Babbie, 2016). Hence, a high level of reliability and
hospital, using radio frequency identification (RFID) validity should be maintained when collecting data.
tags to secure access (Profetto et al., 2022). Additionally, the measuring instrument must be
The aim of the study. To develop a model that informs designed such that it consistently measures what it is
the deployment of the Hospital Management Systems supposed to measure, and research should ensure that
within the cloud. while collecting data, the obtained results are
To realize the research goal, the following objectives trustworthy in order to develop future forecasts (Yin,
were set to be achieved: to determine factors that 2014). Research standards are based on credibility,
influence cloud-based HMS implementation, to reliability, and conformity of data hence validity and
determine the extent of cloud-based HMS integration in reliability must be ensured for the quality and research
the South African health institutions and also rank and standards.
use the identified factors for the development of a cloud- Reliability refers to the measuring instrument’s capacity
based HMS model for the South African health sector. to produce similar results with duplicated or replicated
tests (Yin, 2014).
This study used the Cronbach’s alpha also known as
Materials and Methods alpha co-efficient to determine the reliability or internal
This study followed a quantitative research approach. consistence of the questionnaire and its constructs. The
The study used close-ended questionnaires to collect overall reliability of the questionnaire with 32 items as
data. Due to increased restrictions of visitations at many demonstrated in Table 1 was found to be 0.960, which
institutions, data was collected online. The reliability was considered good since it was above the
questionnaire with close-ended questions was uploaded recommended threshold of 0.7, and also comparing the
onto Survey Monkey and the link leading to the survey number of items in the questionnaire (Heale &
was sent to the contact person to distribute to the Twycross, 2015).
respondents. At each hospital, the researcher got a

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