Quantifying judicious use of health information technology

Abstract

Sufficient evidence suggests that health information technology (HIT) will soon become part of physician procedure. This paper poses that the outcome of using HIT is affected by the intentions of use. Note that ethical indoctrination is a crucial mechanism for monitoring physicians. Judicious and sufficient use of HIT is expected to be the prerequisite for deploying these technologies to help in delivering better care. This research paper, therefore, aims to define professional concerns and intent to use HIT, and identify their associations. A survey study was conducted to collect data for developing a seven-dimensional eHealth success measure. This paper focuses on deriving a structural equation model that can explain the associations among professional concerns and intent to use HIT. Statistical analyses were, therefore, only performed on the Intent to Use and Physician Attributes constructs. The statistical results show that altruism, autonomy, physician-patient relationship and (subconscious) autonomy significantly associate with each other at least at P < 0.05. Only altruism shows to be a significant determinant of intent to use HIT (with P = 0.00005). Other professional concerns only associate with it indirectly through altruism. Medicine has been a science-using and compassionate practice. Medical practice including HIT use may only be reliably assessed from a sociotechnical perspective. Professional concerns show to be associated with intent to use HIT is an expected result. This research direction may contribute to deriving policies to deploy HIT for delivering better care through implementing sufficient and judicious HIT use.