A framework for health information governance: a scoping review

Background: As a newly emerged concept and a product of the twenty-first century, health information governance is expanding at a rapid rate. The necessity of information governance in the healthcare industry is evident, given the significance of health information and the current need to manage it. The objective of the present scoping review is to identify the dimensions and components of health information governance to discover how these factors impact the enhancement of healthcare systems and services.

Methods: PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest and the Google Scholar search engine were searched from inception to June 2024. Methodological study quality was assessed using CASP checklists for selected documents. Endnote 20 was utilized to select and review articles and manage references, and MAXQDA 2020 was used for content analysis.

Results: A total of 37 documents, including 18 review, 9 qualitative and 10 mixed-method studies, were identified by literature search. Based on the findings, six core categories (including health information governance goals, advantages and applications, principles, components or elements, roles and responsibilities and processes) and 48 subcategories were identified to form a unified general framework comprising all extracted dimensions and components.

Conclusions: Based on the findings of this scoping review, health information governance should be regarded as a necessity in the health systems of various countries to improve and achieve their goals, particularly in developing and underdeveloped countries. Moreover, in light of the undesirable effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in various countries, the development and implementation of health information governance models at organizational, national and international levels are among the pressing concerns. Researchers can use the present findings as a comprehensive model for developing health information governance models. A possible limitation of this study is our limited access to some databases.