Identification of Fundamental Issues Relevant to Implementing Electronic Health Record Medication Reconciliation: Case of Noor Hospital in Iran

Abstract

By reviewing in the extant literature, it is inferable that implementation of Electronic Health Record (EHR) is practical for providing salutary effects in the healthcare industries during the procedure of medication reconciliation (Med Rec). This research aims to identify issues or latent concepts relevant to implementing EHR system in the Noor Hospital located in Alborz province, Iran. According to the recent study by scholars, nine latent concepts are related to the implementation of EHR, which are: care coordination issues (CCI); patient education issues (PEI); ownership and accountability issues (OAI); process-of-care issues (PCI); IT-related issues (ITRI); workforce training issues (WTI); workflow issues (WI); resources issues (RI); and documentation issues (DI). The author takes a quantitative method that involves questionnaires distribution among one hundred and thirty-eight practitioners. One hundred and thirty-two valid questionnaires were returned, and collected data were analyzed through the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Findings supported the notion that all issues have a positive relationship with the implementation of EHR Med Rec in the Noor hospital. Among them, DI and PEI had the highest association. The current study implies arresting messages and ramifications for the managers in the healthcare industries in Iran, especially Noor Hospital, and it has its academic benefits in this research era.