Table 2.

Definitions of health information technology domains and ranking by importance as averaged from the responses of the informants

Domain	Description	Score*
Health professional adoption	The use of IT by health professionals	2.1
Improving safety and effectiveness	The use of IT to improve patient safety and clinical effectiveness in healthcare delivery	3.2
Interoperability	The use of technological applications that provide the ability to exchange clinical data across providers, institutions, regions, or jurisdictions	3.4
Financing and incentives	The use of incentives to improve the use or uptake of IT among the stakeholders	3.6
Technical infrastructure and data standards	The use of structural elements to provide the framework for supporting the HIT tools. The use of standards for representation of clinical and technology data (such as ICD-9 and HL7, respectively)	4.2
Vendor engagement	The use of activities aimed at cross-vendor collaboration, and alignment of interests regarding improvements in the use of IT	5.4
Public health	The use of IT with the aim of improving the health of populations	5.6

^*Average rank of importance where 1 is most important and 7 is least important.