Identifying barriers to the adoption of new technology in rural hospitals: a case report

The purpose of this study is to identify barriers to the adoption of new technology in rural settings. Specifically, this paper focuses on identifying and overcoming barriers to the adoption of a medication error reporting system in eight rural hospitals. Prior research has generally focused on barriers to the adoption of new technology in urban areas, medical centers, or large hospitals. The literature has identified six primary barriers to the adoption of new technology: cost, legality, time, fear, usefulness, and complexity. Although our research recognizes these same barriers, the means through which these barriers may be mitigated are different in rural settings. Our research identified three additional barriers to the adoption of new technology that may be specific to rural areas: personnel, physical space, and Internet access. Our outcome variable, in order to demonstrate our success, is the number of reported medication errors.