Health Information Technology Adoption in US Acute Care Hospitals

    Authors

    N. J. Zhang; B. Seblega; T. Wan; L. Unruh; A. Agiro;L. Miao

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    J. Med. Syst.

    Keywords

    Health information technology; Healthcare systems; Innovation adoption; Clinical decision support systems; Strategic information systems; Chronic disease hospitals; ELECTRONIC MEDICAL-RECORD; PHYSICIAN ORDER ENTRY; DECISION-SUPPORT; PATIENT SAFETY; QUALITY; COSTS; IMPLEMENTATION; SYSTEMS; IMPACT; Health Care Sciences & Services; Medical Informatics

    Abstract

    Previous studies show that the healthcare industry lags behind many other economic sectors in the adoption of information technology. The purpose of this study is to understand differences in structural characteristics between providers that do and that do not adopt Health Information Technology (HIT) applications. Publicly available secondary data were used from three sources: American Hospital Association (AHA) annual survey, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) analytics annual survey, and Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) databases. Fifty-two information technologies were grouped into three clusters: clinical, administrative, and strategic decision making ITs. Negative binomial regression was applied with adoption of technology as the dependent variables and eight organizational and contextual factors as the independent variables. Hospitals adopt a relatively larger proportion of administrative information technology as compared to clinical and strategic IT. Large size, urban location and HMO penetration were found to be the most influential hospital characteristics that positively affect information technology adoption. There are still considerable variations in the adoption of information technology across hospitals and in the type of technology adopted. Organizational factors appear to be more influential than market factors when it comes to information technology adoption. The future research may examine whether the Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program in 2011 would increase the information technology uses in hospitals as it provides financial incentives for HER adoptions and uses among providers.

    Journal Title

    Journal of Medical Systems

    Volume

    37

    Issue/Number

    2

    Publication Date

    1-1-2013

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    9

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000318007100023

    ISSN

    0148-5598

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