Critical issues in EHR implementation: Provider and vendor perspectives

Abstract

Stakeholders, both internal and external, can have differing and sometimes conflicting perspectives and priorities even though each has a vested interest in organizational success. Using the lens of stakeholder theory, we examine the differing views of stakeholders (namely, medical providers and vendors) in the implementation of electronic health record (EHR) systems. The implementation process itself can be broken down into three phases: preimplementation, during implementation, and post-implementation. After determining a comprehensive set of seventeen key issues relevant to each phase, we discovered that there are significant differences in the perceptions of EHR vendors and their customers in terms of which issues in each phase of an EHR implementation are most important. These findings indicate that vendors tend to underestimate the role of nursing staff and that providers tend to underestimate the role of security. Both groups, however, agree that physician support throughout the implementation is essential for success.