challenges of establishing a smart hospital in taft city in 2025; a qualitative study

Introduction: the design of a smart hospital, despite its numerous advantages, faces challengesthat require the integration of many organizations to overcome. although advancementshave been made in establishing smart hospitals in iran, the seamless integration of physicalhospital devices and information systems has not yet been fully realized. this integrationfaces challenges, and identifying these challenges can be effective in accelerating the launch ofsmart hospitals. this study aimed to identifying the challenges of establishing a smart hospitalin taft city in 2025.methods: the present qualitative study was conducted in 2025 in taft city, yazd province,through semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample (10 individuals), includingthe hospital ceo and manager, quality improvement officer, quality improvement expert,health economics expert, financial manager, human resources manager, health informationtechnology expert, medical equipment expert, nursing manager, and technical manager. datacollection involved semi-structured interviews, field note-taking, and recording of memosbased on the principle of data saturation. data analysis was performed through qualitativecontent analysis.results: this study interviewed 10 participants (5 females and 5 males) aged 30-58. the meanage of the participants was 41.7 years and the mean work experience of them was 16.4 years.during the data analysis process, 3 main themes (policy-making challenges, technologicaland infrastructural challenges, financial and economic challenges), 6 categories (leadershipand management challenges, legal challenges, technological challenges, infrastructuralchallenges, initial costs, maintenance and upgrade costs) and 24 subcategories wereidentified.conclusion: the results of the present study indicated that the most important challengesincluded policy-making challenges, technological and infrastructural challenges, financialand economic challenges. by resolving these obstacles and empowerment technology, thesuccess of the smart hospital launch project in taft city, yazd province, can be facilitated.