Electronic Health Reacord (EHR) Benefit Realization: Assessing the Perception and Expectation among Electronic Health Record Users at the Volta River Authority (VRA) Clinic.

Abstract

Electronic Health Records (EHR) are being flaunted as the “perfect” replacement for paper-based patient records yet many researches show that adoption and success rate of this Information Technology is less than satisfactory. Involvement of users in system specification and evaluation of performance of EHR has been suggested in literature as one key factor towards successful realization of EHR benefits. The study compares EHR users’ level of benefit realization expectations and their subsequent perception level of benefit realization after a few years (one-five years) of using the EHR system. Questionnaires were distributed to participants drawn from a sample of convenience. Non-parametric t-test statistics was used to determine if there were significant differences and relationships between pre-usage levels of expectations and subsequent levels of perceptions. The results showed that users maintained a high level of benefit realization expectations at the end of data collection period. However, participants also expressed some level of dissatisfaction with the current level of performance of the EHR.