Development of a Change Readiness Scale for Electronic Medical Record Systems Implementation at Hospitals

Medical errors are not only caused by individuals but are also associated with faulty systems and processes. Broad implementation of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems may reduce the errors. However, the failure rate of EMR implementations is still high. Therefore, understanding how to achieve a successful implementation is important. This paper looks at the human factor in EMR implementation at hospitals. It is argued that ensuring the clinical users’ readiness for change is crucial for a successful EMR implementation. For this reason, a scale of three dimensions – Information Technology Savviness, Organizational Support, and Perceived Benefit – is proposed to measure clinical users’ change readiness capacity. The processes of developing, testing and administering the scale are explained, as well as the related validity and reliability studies. The simulated score can be used to show the dimension(s) of change readiness capacity in which a user needs improvement in order to reach a successful EMR implementation.