Healthcare Information Technology Adoption and Protection Motivation: A Study of Computerized Physicial Order Entry Systems

In this study, considering medical errors causing significant patient safety risk as the major threat perceived by health care providers, we adopt the protection motivation theory (PMT) from health psychology and investigate factors affecting the decision of health care providers to adopt CPOE systems. This research examines the effect of two major PMT variables on the CPOE adoption such as threat appraisal variables (i.e. perceived severity and vulnerability of threat, rewards) and cognitive appraisal variables (i.e. response efficacy, self-efficacy, and response cost). In addition, this study extends the original PMT model by incorporating the internal organizational and environmental factors associated with CPOE systems adoption and examine their effects on its actual adoption. They are organizational size, IT resources, top management support, industry and government regulations, and competitive pressures. A semistructured interview with senior executives at five regional healthcare providers was conducted and a national questionnaire-based field survey with senior healthcare executives will be followed for this research. The potential theoretical and practical implications are discussed