Eliciting end-user expectations to guide the implementation process of a new electronic health record: A case study using concept mapping

Objective: To evaluate the usability of concept mapping to elicit the expectations of healthcare professionals regarding the implementation of a new electronic health record (EHR). These expectations need to be taken into account during the implementation process to maximize the chance of success of the EHR. Setting: Two university hospitals in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in the preparation phase of jointly implementing a new EHR. During this study the hospitals had different methods of documenting patient information (legacy EHR vs. paper-based records). Method: Concept mapping was used to determine and classify the expectations of healthcare professionals regarding the implementation of a new EHR. A multidisciplinary group of 46 healthcare professionals from both university hospitals participated in this study. Expectations were elicited in focus groups, their relevance and feasibility were assessed through a web-questionnaire. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling and clustering methods were used to identify clusters of expectations. Results: We found nine clusters of expectations, each covering an important topic to enable the healthcare professionals to work properly with the new EHR once implemented: usability, data use and reuse, facility conditions, data registration, support, training, internal communication, patients, and collaboration. Average importance and feasibility of each of the clusters was high. Conclusion: Concept mapping is an effective method to find topics that, according to healthcare professionals, are important to consider during the implementation of a new EHR. The method helps to combine the input of a large group of stakeholders at limited efforts. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved