Abstract

Introduction: Outsourcing of health information technology services (OHITS) is an important process for healthcare organizations due to the lack of expert staff to respond rapid advance in IT and the security of patient’s information. This study aimed at presenting a model to evaluate factors affecting OHITS. Method: This is a descriptive-analytic study, conducted in 2017. Participants were experts of IT and accounting field. This research was performed in four general steps: identifying the factors affecting OHITS through literature review; determining suitable indicators by Delphi technique; prioritizing the factors using Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP), measuring the accuracy of research hypotheses by Partial Least Square (PLS) and calculating the Goodness Of Fit (GOF) criteria for the model. Findings: the most and the least important factors affecting OHITS were “motivation” and “selection of a provider” respectively. GOF criteria was 0.697, suggesting powerful model fitting. Conclusion: Using the model presented in this research, the healthcare managers and chief officers of IT will be able to decide consciously about outsourcing projects, and also manage the project better.

Key words: Outsourcing, information technology, Partial Least Square.