Page 48 - 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

managing risks associated with HIS is paramount in that will enable them to use these migrated services. As
assuring patients’ safety regardless of hospital size and emphasized by Sadoughi et al. (2020), keeping and
structure. Hence, risk management and control is a maintaining cloud security is a pain-staking task that
significant factor for migrating HIS to the cloud and needs any organization to remain abreast with
healthcare systems should be mindful of the techniques technological developments, and to be many steps ahead
that they use to migrate their services. of its adversaries. Cloud migration complacency may be
Cloud-based services migration has many implications, limiting in informing a successful cloud strategy; hence,
such as budgets and costs to technical aspects including organizations need to have constant evaluation of what
maintenance and delivery. This implies that to get a vivid their IT support team can do better and how such can be
understanding and generalization of findings for the achieved.
migration of HIS to the cloud environment, this study This study revealed that organizational, technological,
needed to involve as many stakeholders as possible who individual, and social aspects as well as risk control and
interact with the system. However, because this study analysis are important determinants in shaping the
collected online data, some stakeholders could not perspective of cloud-based HIS users. However, the
participate in the study for one reason or the other. More cloud-based system characteristics such as ease-of-use,
so, this study also needed to triangulate the methods relative advantage, scalability, security, and trust are
during data collection whereby some data would have major antecedents in accepting a cloud-based HIS. This
been collected qualitatively from policy makers, like top implies that an organization needs to simplify the
hospital administrators, through interviews. This study, understanding and use of the cloud by users by enhancing
therefore, recommends that future research should their capabilities through training as well as involving
increase the scope of data collection by increasing the them in the decision-making process around the
number of participating hospitals in the study and try to migration to the cloud.
triangulate the methods by using a combination of As observed by recent researchers (Abbas et al., 2020;
quantitative and qualitative data collection methods, such Kalema, 2022; Singh et al., 2022) in the current era of the
as interviewing policy and strategic decision makers. Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), the greatest
For conclusiveness of a cloud-based HIS, one needs to do opportunities as well as the greatest threats are the new
a follow up of what happens after migration. This could trends in computing. This technology “Big Bang” has
also be in the form of observing the adherence to policies and is continuously changing the landscape of every
and standards as well as assessment of the reduction in organization, including those in the healthcare sector.
the total cost of ownership of the system after migration. Migrating services to the cloud is increasingly becoming
Therefore, since a cross-sectional data collection the order of the day for those organizations seeking
approach was used, this study recommends that a agility. Since such has made the cloud to move faster, the
longitudinal research data collection should be used by earlier organizations gain diversified expertise in using
future researchers in order to be in an actual position to and administering services in this environment the better
report what will happen after some time. A longitudinal is their future survival. As a result, the model designed
survey will also assist in determining whether medical for this study could be a beneficial guide to empirical
personnel and healthcare workers are effectively using research on cloud-based systems, not only for the
the system. healthcare sector but also for other sectors. The findings
Several researchers (Kalema, 2013; Rahim et al., 2022; of this study are intended to help healthcare decision-
Tripathi, 2018) note that users of technology may have makers by increasing their awareness of the cloud-based
their perceptions change with time. This implies that systems, and to keep in mind the impact of the identified
analysis of users’ demographics and situational variables factors on decision-making at all levels within healthcare.
should go beyond descriptive and analyse the moderating
and interacting effects of these variables in order to make Acknowledgments
a better prediction of what happens after some time The authors wish to acknowledge all those that
interval. Much as this study appreciates this observation, participated in this study. Thank you so much for support.
respondent’s demographics and situational variables Special thanks to the Council for Scientific and Industrial
were only analysed using descriptive analysis to show the Research, CSIR (SS-GEN-HR-009 REV 01 2011) for the
frequencies. This may cause a limitation in predicting funding of the study.
future occurrences in the usage of the cloud services. This
study recommends that future research should make Ethical Approval
effort to analyse the interacting effects of the moderating The study obtained ethical clearance from the institution
factors. Ethics Committee (Ref. No. FCRE/ICT/2021/06/002(1).

Conclusions Funding Source
Migrating services and applications to the cloud is a big The study was supported by HCD-INTERBURSARY
step. However, it is the first step as migration is one thing obtained from the CSIR.
and administering the use of the migrated services is
another. A successful cloud-based HIS requires the References
healthcare system to remain active and vigilant, hence the Abbas, I., Ahmad, M., Faizan, M., Arshed, W., &
need to train all stakeholders to achieve advanced skills Khalid, J. (2020, June 12-13). Issues and

46