Adoption of healthcare information technology.

摘要

Healthcare in the United States is in crisis. The total cost of healthcare is approaching 20% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and yet some 45 million people do not have healthcare insurance and the quality of healthcare in the U.S. is inferior on many measures to that provided in other advanced countries. Improving and reducing the cost of healthcare is a problem of the highest national importance. Many healthcare problems are systemic and require major legislative changes to fix. On the other hand, there is general agreement that information technology can be a major part of the solution to the healthcare crisis. A shift to more universal use of healthcare information technology (HIT) that employs electronic medical records is called for. To be effective, this technology must be employed not only in major medical centers such as hospitals, but also by the thousands of small medical offices throughout the country. To date, the vast majority of small medical practices have not adopted HIT. This research is an exploratory case study of the adoption of healthcare information technology in a small physician's office. The objectives are to determine the factors that motivate HIT adoption and to study the impact of the successful employment of HIT on the doctor's practice. The research finds that a major motivation for adopting HIT in a specialty practice was the need for the doctor to satisfy regulations regarding the privacy and security of patient information. It was also found that the adoption of HIT led to communication efficiencies in the network of hospitals and other providers with which the doctor communicates and to opportunities for more advanced forms of medical practice. Using the insights from this study and a follow-up survey of similar small medical practices, the study concludes with recommendations that could facilitate more rapid adoption of HIT by small medical practices.