Understanding resistance towards electronic patient health data in South Australian family practice

This paper reports the results from a survey of 131 medical practitioners in South Australian General Practice concerning adoption of a computerised system for storing and potentially amalgamating health information from several practices. Practitioners were primarily influenced by the positively perceived potential for such technology use to improve patient health and well-being outcomes and secondarily by the negatively perceived potential for unwanted change in the status, control and autonomy of their professional role. Practitioner attitude reflected how they resolved the competing influences. The data suggest that strategies for implementing such systems should address individual perceptions by increasing belief in the potential for patient improvement or by decreasing belief of the inevitability of unwanted role change.