Do Perceptions of An Organizing Vision Influence Physicians Assimilation of Electronic Medical Records'

Heathcare policy makers look to information technologies (IT) to play a key role in addressing problematic issues such as access, cost, and quality. High expectations for solutions that IT might bring to healthcare along with government mandates, increased funding for IT initiatives, and dramatic expansion of IT capabilities are stimulating ambitious projects in a variety of settings, especially with electronic medical records (EMRs). Numerous intelligent foresights abound for applying EMRs, but uncertainties about benefits have also been raised. In this paper, we examine how a community-wide discourse affects the assimilation of EMRs. Using the theoretic concepts of an organizing vision (that distills insight, intuition, and knowledge) and organizational learning (that describes potential ability to perform) we conduct an analysis on a mailed survey of small independent physician practices to assess the scale of assimilation of EMRs based on perceptions of an organizing vision. Our research contributes to bridging the gap between theory and practice by examining how an organizing vision helps shape organizational implementation and adoption decisions of a complex health IT innovation.