Building consensus on the priority-setting for national policies in health information technology: A Delphi survey

Objectives: With growing attention on the healthcare industry as a potential market for big data and artificial intelligence in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, countries around the world are introducing and developing various policies and projects related to health information technology (HIT). To assist prioritizing HIT topics in policy making, this study adopts the Delphi technique to garner expert opinions from various fields of health informatics. Methods: Data were collected from November 2019 to February 2020 using the Delphi technique through two rounds of surveys administered via email. The Delphi panel consisted of 16 experts with a high level of experience in health informatics. They were from the Health Information Policy Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Health and Welfare of Korea, and the board of directors of the Korean Society of Medical Informatics. The experts were asked to assess the importance, urgency, and difficulty of HIT topics in three domains: technology, application, and infrastructure. Results: Of the 40 topic items, a 100% agreement was reached for the importance of 6 items, including 2 items in technology, 1 item in application, and 3 items in infrastructure domains. Especially, Quadrant I of a 2×2 matrix showing high importance and high urgency included 7 items in the technology domain, 2 items in the application domain, and 13 items in the infrastructure domain. Conclusions: Most items with high importance and urgency belonged to the infrastructure domain. The findings indicated that fostering an infrastructural environment should be polices with top priorities of HIT.