Application of electronic medical record system and its usage evaluation among health care professionals in selected tertiary health care facilities in Southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

The advancement in technology has brought about the use of various types of computers and Internet-based information systems for products and services. This had solved and is still solving various problems of people‘s day-to-day activities in today‘s world. As a result of this, most developed countries and very few developing countries have adopted the use of electronic health (eHealth) information systems. These include the use of electronic medical records (EMRs), decision support systems (DSS), telemedicine, and etcetera, in healthcare services because of the numerous advantages they have over the manual medical records keeping system. Patients‘ medical information is now being captured using electronic media and most especially the EMR system which has become more sophisticated day-in, day-out. Hence, EMR implementation in developing countries requires empirical study to determine the usage evaluation to determine the success or otherwise of the EMR implementation in two hospitals so that other hospitals will borrow a leaf. The study explored application of electronic medical record system and its usage evaluation among health care professionals in selected tertiary health care facilities in Southwestern Nigeria. The survey research design of the correlational type was employed for this study using stratified random sampling to select two hundred and forty-five (245) respondents from two tertiary health care facilities in Southwestern Nigeria. The research instrument used which was a structured questionnaire was tagged ―Adoption Factors and Usage Evaluation of Electronic Medical Records System Success‖. A total of 915 medical/health practitioners accounted for the total population, while a sample of 245 was drawn. A total of 222 copies of questionnaire were filled and returned. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used in analyzing the data collected using frequency, percentages, mean and standard deviation for descriptive analysis, while Pearson‘s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient was used for testing hypotheses one and two, and multiple regression analysis for hypothesis three and four. The result from the study revealed that there was a positive significant correlation between adoption factors and EMR systems‘ success (r= 0.440) and there was a strong positive correlation between usage evaluation and system success of EMR in the two healthcare facilities. (r= 0.618). More so, findings showed that adoption factors jointly and significantly affect EMR system success with a coefficient of 0.648 and a multiple R square of 0.420. And there was also a relative contribution of adoption factors (β = 0.215) and usage evaluation (0.526) on EMR system success. The study concluded that electronic medical records have become a standard for every healthcare facility for improvement in the efficiency and profitability of the organizations. The study, therefore, recommended that all healthcare facilities in Nigeria should adopt electronic medical records, and all healthcare providers should be given thorough training on the use of EMR.