EHR acceptance among Austrian resident doctors

Information Technology (IT) acceptance research has shown that user acceptance is a critical factor for successful IT implementations. Therefore, the success of Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems is largely influenced by the acceptance levels of physicians and their intention to use the system in their daily work. In order to get a better understanding of factors affecting physicians' acceptance of EHR systems, the effects of the determinants social influence, health IT (HIT) experience, and privacy concerns were investigated. The study presents results from a nationwide survey of Austrian general practitioners and specialists in private practices. To examine the extent to which the factors influence acceptance levels among Austrian physicians, the presented research uses a modified Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) approach. The model was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) and mediation analyses. According to the results, the presented model is a suitable instrument to explain physicians' acceptance of EHR systems. As expected, social influence, HIT experience, and privacy concerns had a significant effect on the perceived usefulness of EHR systems, which in turn had an impact on a favorable attitude as well as the intention to use such a system.