Introduction: Currently, information technology is considered an important tool to improve healthcare services. To adopt the right technologies, policy makers should have adequate information about present and future advances. This study aimed to review and compare studies with a focus on the future of health information technology.
Method: This review study was completed in 2015. The databases used were Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest, Ovid Medline, and PubMed. Keyword searches were used to identify papers and materials published between 2000 and 2015. Initially, 407 papers were obtained, and they were reduced to 11 papers at the final stage. The selected papers were described and compared in terms of the country of origin, objective, methodology, and time horizon.
Results: The papers were divided into two groups: those forecasting the future of health information technology (seven papers) and those providing health information technology foresight (four papers). The results showed that papers related to forecasting the future of health information technology were mostly a literature review, and the time horizon was up to 10 years in most of these studies. In the health information technology foresight group, most of the studies used a combination of techniques, such as scenario building and Delphi methods, and had long-term objectives.
Conclusion: To make the most of an investment and to improve planning and successful implementation of health information technology, a strategic plan for the future needs to be set. To achieve this aim, methods such as forecasting the future of health information technology and offering health information technology foresight can be applied. The forecasting method is used when the objectives are not very large, and the foresight approach is recommended when large-scale objectives are set to be achieved. In the field of health information technology, the results of foresight studies can help to establish realistic long-term expectations of the future of health information technology.
Keywords: forecast; foresight; future research; health information technology.