The used theories for the adoption of electronic health record: a systematic literature review

Abstract

Electronic Health Record (EHR) is one of the most important applications in the healthcare domain which has many benefits for the healthcare community as a whole. The objective of our study is to conduct a comprehensive systematic literature review regarding the EHR adoption over the various healthcare contexts in order to identify the used adoption theories and their most significant factors in EHR adoption. We searched databases including ScienceDirect, PubMed, IEEE Digital Library, Web of Science, Springer, Scopus and Wiley between January 2005 and July 2017. Consequently, 18 identified papers appeared in 17 international journals and conferences. Eligible studies independently were critically appraised, collected within data extraction form and then thematically analyzed by two reviewers and if necessary, the third author. We found out 9 different models and theories including TAM, UTAUT, TOE, DOI, TPB, TIB, stakeholder theory, institutional theory and social network have been used in EHR adoption contexts and the most significant factors in this contexts were perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. The results demonstrated that the most studies required the EHR adoption have been performed in the developed countries, in which them most of used questionnaires for data gathering. Adoption of EHR systems is multi-dimensional, complicated, and affected by different types of factors in healthcare organizations. Our findings provide valuable insights and shed some light on researchers, decision and policy makers and managers of healthcare domain to make more informed decisions about the adoption and use of EHR systems.