Driving Health Technologies Towards Performance: A Contextualization Within the Hospital Sector

Abstract

Background Technology plays a crucial role in determining organizational performance and there exists vast evidence that health technologies do so in reference to hospital performance. Nevertheless, although the direct effects of health technologies on hospital performance have been studied widely, there exists a surprising lack of evidence on how well health technologies are expected to perform in specific hospitals, depending on their organizational and managerial characteristics. The aim of this work is to shed light on these dynamics in order to support scholars and hospital managers with a clear picture of the expected effects of the health technologies they adopt. Methods Through multiple literature searches on Web of Science integrated by cross-reference analyses, a theoretical framework linking organizational contextual factors, technology implementation and organizational performance is provided and applied to the hospital sector. Results Contextual factors play a key role in determining the performance of health technologies. Technology performance should be interpreted in reference to a balanced array of hospital performance dimensions and should be understood in a broader system-perspective, aimed at creating “health” within the community. Conclusions There emerges the need of a full awareness of the effects that hospital contextual factors are likely to exert on the use of heath technologies and on their impact on overall performance. The latter should not be interpreted solely referred to hospitals’ boundaries.