With the ever increasing cost of investing in technological innovations and the amount of patient data to be processed on daily basis, healthcare organizations are in dire need for solutions that could provide easy access and better management of real time data with lower cost. The emerging trend of organizations optimizing cost in investing less on physical hardware has brought about the use of cloud computing technology in various industries including healthcare. The use of cloud computing technology has brought better efficiency in providing real time data access, bigger storage capacity and reduction of cost in terms of maintenance. Although numerous benefits have been publicized for organizations to adopt the technology, nevertheless the rate of adoption is still at is infancy. Hence, this study explores factors that may affect the adoption of cloud-based technology particularly within the healthcare context. A quantitative study was conducted through the distribution of survey in Jordanian healthcare facilities. The survey was conducted to gauge the understanding of cloud-based EHR concepts identified through literature and validate the factors that could potentially provide an impact towards the cloud-based EHR adoption. The theoretical underpinnings of Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) were investigated in studying the impact towards the adoption of cloud-based EHR. Results indicate that Technology-Organization-Environment factors such as privacy, reliability, security, top management support, organizational readiness, competition and regulatory environment are critical factors towards the adoption of cloud technology within a healthcare setting.
Adoption of Cloud-based E-Health Record through the Technology, Organization and Environment Perspective