Healthcare providers’ readiness for electronic health record adoption: a cross-sectional study during pre-implementation phase

Abstract

Background The adoption of an electronic health record (EHR) in the healthcare system has the potential to make healthcare service delivery effective and efficient by providing accurate, up-to-date, and complete information. Despite its great importance, the adoptions of EHR in low-income country settings, like Ethiopia, were lagging and increasingly failed. Assessing the readiness of stakeholders before the actual adoption of EHR is considered the prominent solution to tackle the problem. However, little is known about healthcare providers’ EHR readiness in this study setting. Accordingly, this research was conducted aiming at examining healthcare providers’ readiness for EHR adoption and associated factors in southwestern Ethiopia. Methods An institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted from September 1 to October 30, 2021. A total of 423 healthcare providers working in public hospitals were selected using a simple random sampling technique. Multivariable logistic regression was fitted to identify determinant factors of overall healthcare providers’ readiness after the other covariates were controlled. Result In this study, the overall good readiness level of EHR adoption was 52.8% (n = 204) [95% CI of 47.9% to 56.6%]. Age, computer literacy, computer access at health facilities, attitude towards EHRs, awareness about EHRs, perceived benefit, and perceived technology self-efficacy were significantly associated with the overall health care providers’ readiness for the adoption of EHR using a cut point of P-value less than 0.05. Conclusion Around half of the respondents had a good level of overall healthcare providers’ readiness for the adoption of EHR which was considered inadequate. This finding implied that a huge effort is required to improve readiness before the actual implementation of EHRs. The finding implied that younger-aged groups were more ready for such technology which in turn implied; the older one needs more concern. Enhancing computer literacy, confidence building to raise self-efficacy of such technology, addressing the issue of computer availability at health facilities, building a positive attitude, awareness campaign of EHR, and recognizing the usefulness of such systems were the necessary measures to improve EHR readiness in this setting. Additionally, further studies are recommended to encompass all types of EHR readiness such as organizational readiness, technology readiness, societal readiness, and so on. Additionally, exploring the healthcare provider opinion with qualitative study and extending the proposed study to other implementation settings are recommended to be addressed by future works.

Organizational and health professional readiness for the implementation of electronic medical record system: an implication for the current EMR implementation in northwest Ethiopia

“…The sample size for health professionals’ readiness was calculated using a single population proportion formula with the following assumptions: The prevalence of EMR readiness in southwestern Ethiopia was around 50%, 21 with a 95% confidence level, a 5% margin of error and a 10% non-response rate. Finally, a minimum sample size of 423 was obtained.…”

Reaping the benefits of digital transformation through Public-Private Partnership: A service ecosystem view applied to healthcare

“…Relying on these arguments, our case exemplifies how community development represents the underlying factor nurturing the digital transformation of healthcare organizations (Cavallone & Palumbo, 2020). This adds interesting insights to scientific evidence claiming that healthcare organizations are moderately ready to undertake a shift towards robotization and automation, but they need a boost to accomplish a smooth digital transition (e.g., Wernhart et al, 2019;Ngusie et al, 2022).…”

“…This adds interesting insights to scientific evidence claiming that healthcare organizations are moderately ready to undertake a shift towards robotization and automation, but they need a boost to accomplish a smooth digital transition ( e.g. , Wernhart et al, 2019 ; Ngusie et al, 2022 ).…”

Implementation of Health Information Systems to Improve Patient Identification

“…Furthermore, healthcare data mining can help managers make strategic decisions by allowing them to search out and predict future trends [ 49 ]. Health information technology is seen as a vehicle for improving healthcare efficiency and quality [ 19 , 50 ]. Health facilities are making investments in hospital information systems in the modern age of information technology, aiming to enhance efficiency of the healthcare [ 51 , 52 , 53 ].…”

“…The importance of research on the improvement possibilities offered by healthcare services has especially increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which also accelerated digitalization in organizations and increased demand for technological skills in employees [ 16 , 17 , 18 ]. Computer literacy and technological skills increase the readiness of healthcare professionals to use health information technologies [ 19 ].…”