Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management, Willie A. Deese College of Business and Economics, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Greensboro, NC, 27401, USA.
Department of Information Technology and Decision Sciences, G. Brint Ryan College of Business, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, 76203, USA.
Eur J Health Econ. 2024 Aug;25(6):963-977. doi: 10.1007/s10198-023-01641-3. Epub 2023 Nov 11.
Healthcare knowledge management systems can mitigate hospitals' operational inefficiency. As a healthcare information technology, the electronic health record (EHR) receives much attention from medical institutions due to its considerable impact on operational cost performance. This paper focuses on EHR systems to address operational inefficiency by which patients pay more for health care services, and many U.S. hospitals are filing for bankruptcy. From the theoretical perspective of the practice-based view, this paper introduces a path to implement EHR systems for improving cost performance. The empirical investigation is archival data of 200 hospitals collected from the U.S. healthcare agencies. Findings contribute to prior work by hypothesizing moderating and mediating roles in EHR systems implementation. This paper introduces absorptive capacity and monitoring mechanisms as enablers of implementing EHR systems. The results showed that hospital monitoring strengthens the relationship between absorptive capacity and electronic health record systems implementation, which results in better operational cost performance. Theoretically, this study supports the long-term potential benefits of EHR adoption, and its findings are consistent with optimizing efficiency through data standardization and interoperability. From a practical perspective, this study supports hospitals' investments in evolving healthcare information technology systems through the development of a knowledge-based system employing EHR, particularly when hospitals are merging or need a financial strategic plan to control expenses.
医疗保健知识管理系统可以减轻医院的运营效率低下问题。作为医疗信息技术，电子健康记录（EHR）因其对运营成本绩效的重大影响而受到医疗机构的高度关注。本文专注于 EHR 系统，通过解决导致患者为医疗服务支付更多费用的运营效率低下问题，许多美国医院正在申请破产。从实践基础观的理论角度出发，本文提出了一条通过实施 EHR 系统来提高成本绩效的路径。实证调查是从美国医疗机构收集的 200 家医院的档案数据。研究结果通过假设 EHR 系统实施中的调节和中介作用，对先前的工作做出了贡献。本文引入了吸收能力和监控机制作为实施 EHR 系统的推动者。结果表明，医院监控加强了吸收能力和电子健康记录系统实施之间的关系，从而实现了更好的运营成本绩效。从理论上讲，本研究支持 EHR 采用的长期潜在收益，其研究结果与通过数据标准化和互操作性优化效率的观点一致。从实践的角度来看，本研究支持医院通过开发基于知识的 EHR 系统投资于不断发展的医疗信息技术系统，特别是当医院正在合并或需要财务战略计划来控制支出时。
