Abstract

The use of information technology (IT) is essential in the insurance industry for reducing the risks and managing the affairs, and this industry needs to be equipped with IT in order to stay competitive. In this regard, identifying the barriers to the use of IT in the insurance industry can provide great opportunities for improving its performance and help to develop appropriate strategies. This study aimed to investigate the barriers to the use of the management information system in the health insurance organizations in Ilam. This was an applied, cross-sectional and analytical-descriptive study conducted in the health insurance organizations in Ilam, Iran, in 2015, in which all managers and employees of health insurance organizations were studied using census method (n = 200). The required data were collected using a questionnaire to investigate six dimensions, including environmental, human, cultural, organizational, technological and managerial barriers. The collected data were analysed using SPSS 19.0. Moreover, the method used to examine the barriers in this study was structural equation modeling which was performed using AMOS. The results showed that among the six dimensions of barriers to the use of IT, the highest and lowest means were related to the cultural factors (3.94 +/- 0.53) and the environmental factors (2.8 +/- 0.94), respectively. Also, the cultural barriers (regression weight = 0.11) and environmental barriers (regression weight = 0.94) had the highest and lowest effects, respectively. According to the results of the present study, the cultural barriers were the most important ones to the use and implementation of IT. Notifying the use and development of IT in the insurance organizations, holding conferences aimed at presenting the latest achievements and using qualified persons for providing practical IT training are a few effective ways of overcoming the cultural barriers.