Evaluation of health care professionals’ readiness for accepting Electronic Health Records in Western Iran: A Study of E-Health Care in a Developing Country

Abstract: The rapid development of information and communication technology (ICT) has affected all aspects of business, including health care. One of the most important contributions of ICT to healthcare system effectiveness is the creation of electronic health records (EHRs). EHRs are considered as the critical source of providing information in a healthcare system. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the health care professionals’ readiness level within EHRs implementation in five teaching hospitals at Hamedan city in Western Iran. We used a descriptive cross sectional survey design in the form of a standard questionnaire for gathering quantitative data from a sample of 137 healthcare professionals randomly. The data were reported as mean and proportion. This study has evaluated three components of the readiness to accept EHR including computer skills, knowledge, and attitude. The differences in these components by sociodemographic characteristics were assessed using t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and correlation between them was measured using Spearman correlation coefficient. Results of this study showed a small positive correlation between knowledge and attitude while the correlations between computer skill and knowledge and attitude were negative. There were small differences in readiness level by sociodemographic characteristics including education attainment and occupation.