Exploring physician adoption of EMRs: a multi-case analysis

The adoption of new technology within healthcare has been promoted as a way to reduce costs and increase efficiencies as well as improve quality. The literature has documented a significant number of implementation failures by large groups and hospitals with access to IT skills and resources. Given the low adoption rate among physicians, the challenges facing small practices can be daunting. While financial and technical barriers have been explored at the physician level, the actual implementation challenges facing small groups have not been explored. This paper presents a qualitative three case analysis of physician groups that have employed EMRs and the pre and post adoption insights. Results show that planning was a key common variable missing; the anticipated downtime was longer than expected and the workflow disruption and maintenance costs were underestimated.