EHRs (Electronic Health Records), can contribute greatly to improving care and managing the rising costs of healthcare. The use and the integration of EHRs (Electronic Health Records) in supporting collaboration to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare remains a challenge. It appears that the physicians are at the center of this bottleneck.As healthcare is provided by interdisciplinary teams of clinicians and collaboration and coordination are key to success. Literature suggests reasons for the limited use relate to policy, financial and usability considerations, but it does not provide an understanding of reasons for physicians' limited interaction and adaptation of EHR. This paper investigates how "meaningful use" of EHRs by physicians enable patient centered healthcare to be achieved.Following an analysis of qualitative data, collected in a case study at a hospital using interviews, this research shows how a collaborative technology architecture can enable the reduction in the costs of healthcare and improvements in the quality of care by enabling more patient centered health care.

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Broadlawns Medical Center (BMC) is a teaching acute care community hospital of 200 beds located in Des Moines, Iowa. As other safety net providers across the nation, the hospital operates in a difficult environment with a growing number of uninsured patients and simultaneously dwindling tax support. By 2005, George Washington University and several Joint Commission reports had publicly highlighted the hospital’s challenges of financial sustainability and the provided quality of care. The hospital’s senior management team decided to adopt an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system in an attempt to gain access to real-time performance data. The EHR adoption project posed many organizational, managerial, and technological challenges but also provided numerous eventual benefits. BMC had not only successfully resolved the stated problems of healthcare quality, financial stability, and patient satisfaction scores, but also became one of the national leaders in healthcare information technology.

Broadlawns Medical Center (BMC) is a teaching acute care community hospital of 200 beds located in Des Moines, Iowa. As other safety net providers across the nation, the hospital operates in a difficult environment with a growing number of uninsured patients and simultaneously dwindling tax support. By 2005, George Washington University and several Joint Commission reports had publicly highlighted the hospital's challenges of financial sustainability and the provided quality of care. The hospital's senior management team decided to adopt an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system in an attempt to gain access to real-time performance data. The EHR adoption project posed many organizational, managerial, and technological challenges but also provided numerous eventual benefits. BMC had not only successfully resolved the stated problems of healthcare quality, financial stability, and patient satisfaction scores, but also became one of the national leaders in healthcare information technology.