Assessing organizational readiness for electronic health record adoption in long-term care facilities

Methods to support long-term care (LTC) providers to successfully implement electronic health records (EHR) are vital as they move to leverage the potential for improvements in quality, efficiency, and effectiveness through EHRs. This article reports the development of a readiness assessment tool to allow LTC facilities to measure their capacity for successful EHR implementation. The LTC Readiness Assessment Tool for EHR Implementation was developed through a literature review and qualitative study to establish content validity, followed by the current study to assess the tool's internal reliability. The tool was mailed to administrators or directors of nursing at 600 LTC facilities in Texas with instructions for survey completion. Ninety-three surveys were returned. Item means ranged from 2.72 to 5.07 on a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree), with the category of state regulatory support receiving the lowest mean and physical plant requirements receiving the highest. Internal reliability was supported with a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.95.