Persuasion Tactics in the Implementation of Large-Scale EHR Suites in Public Healthcare

Large-scale electronic health record (EHR) suites have the potential to cover a broad range of use needs across various healthcare domains. However, a challenge that must be solved is the distributed governance structure of public healthcare: Regional health authorities regulate hospitals, municipalities are responsible for first-line healthcare services, and general practitioners (GPs) have an independent entrepreneurial role. In such settings, EHR program owners cannot enforce municipalities and GPs to come on board. Thus, we examine what tactics owners of large-scale EHR suite programs apply to persuade municipalities to participate, how strongly these tactics are enforced, and the consequences. Empirically, we focus on the Health Platform program in Central Norway where the goal is to implement the U.S. Epic EHR suite in 2022. Theoretically, the paper is positioned in the socio-technical literature.