Journal of Isfahan Medical School

Journal of Isfahan Medical School

Policy Solutions for Patients' Utilization of Health Information Services

Document Type : policy brief

Authors
1 Professor, Department of Medical Library and Information Science, Health Information Technology Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
2 General Practitioner, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
10.48305/jims.v44.i871.1291
Abstract
The right to access health information is a fundamental and essential human right. Despite this, in the country's health system, patients' rights to utilize health information services have received less attention from policymakers and managers. This policy brief aims to analyze the dimensions of these rights and provide practical solutions for their realization, based on the findings of a Delphi study and expert opinions. The study's findings showed that patients' rights to utilize health information services have eight main dimensions, including the right to health knowledge, the right to access information, professional behavior of medical librarians with patients, content richness, information literacy skills, awareness of new services and products, ease of use of health information centers, and professional behavior of healthcare professionals with patients. Based on these findings and related expert opinions, five policy options were examined, including "developing and notifying a national charter of patients' information rights, designing and implementing educational courses for healthcare professionals and librarians, installing a charter of patients' information rights in public areas of hospitals and hospital libraries, defining a related course unit in the educational program of students, and creating a system for registering health information services in the patient's electronic file." Analysis of implementation barriers showed that each of these options faces specific challenges, such as lack of previous experience in developing such documents, time conflicts of educational courses with employees' daily duties, physical limitations in hospitals, long administrative processes for changing educational syllabi, and lack of unified information technology infrastructure.
Keywords
Subjects

1.     Ashrafi-Rizi H, Shahrzadi L, Dehghani-Champiri Z. Identification of patients’ rights to benefit from consumer health information services: A Delphi study. J Edu Health Promot 2019; 8: 102.
2.     Samouei R, Rezazadeh S, Rabieidastjerdi H, Samouei Sh. Design, psychometric and application of the healthy city indicators questionnaire [in Persian]. Iran J Health Educ Health Promot 2024; 12(3): 233-44.
3.     Sharifi H. Analysis of the civil liability of physicians in the legal system of iran with an emphasis on the right to health [in Persian]. HLJ 2024; 2(2): 1-18.
4.     Ehsanpour SR. The evolution of the concept of health rights: from historical foundations to philosophical genealogy and contemporary challenges [in Persian]. HLJ 2024; 2(2): 1-20.
5.     Delavar F, Pashaeypoor S, Negarandeh R. Health literacy index: A new tool for health literacy assessment [in Persian]. Journal of Hayat 2018; 24(1): 1-6.
6.     Mohamadlo A, Batooli Z, Ramezankhani A. The analysis and review of the literatures in the field of health literacy [in Persian]. JMIS 2020; 6(2): 58-72.
 
Volume 44, Issue 871
3rd Week,September (Policy Brief)
September and October 2026
Pages 1291-1295

  • Receive Date 04 April 2026
  • Accept Date 18 April 2026