Diffusion of innovations: A foundational theory for medical informatics research

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors discuss the use of diffusion of innovations as a foundational theory for research in the medical informatics discipline. They performed a meta-analysis to examine the enduring efficacy of the tenets of diffusion of innovations. Then, they performed a content analysis to examine over 2,000 journal articles from the fields of medical informatics, medicine, and information systems. The authors found that tenets of diffusion of innovations theory were prevalent in much of the literature and that the relationships proposed by diffusion of innovations theory have remained significant in the empirical literature. Although several theories are useful in explaining phenomenon in the domain of medical informatics, diffusion of innovation is one such theory that can be applicable to a vast amount of medical informatics research focused on new technologies or work processes, and the authors suggest that scholars use and/or synthesize it with additional theory to provide a foundation for future research in this area.