Abstract:
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009 authorized numerous federal programs intended to address barriers to adoption of electronic health records (EHRs). This dissertation analyzes national survey data to test and compare the significance of five factors in physician decisions on whether to adopt an EHR: improved information, the cost of adoption, the HITECH financial incentives program, challenges in selecting a specific EHR vendor or product, and operational implementation barriers. This study focuses on physicians in smaller, physician-owned practices, who are an important target of policies to promote EHR adoption. In addition to the traditional binary analysis of adopters versus non-adopters, this research also tests models with three categories of adoption status: 1) using an EHR, 2) in the process of adoption, and 3) not yet in the process of adoption. Key findings include:
