Diffusion of a New Medical Technology: Physicians' Acceptance of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) in Taiwan

New technologies always raise concerns, and electronic medical records (EMRs) are no exception. Using diffusion of innovations, this paper reports the findings of qualitative interviews with eleven physicians in Taiwan to elicit their perceptions about adopting EMR systems. The interviews revealed that physicians might take factors such as cost, computer literacy, confidentiality, privacy, compatibility, complexity, and context into account when they decided to adopt EMR systems. Before the Taiwanese government sponsors efforts to encourage implementation of EMRs, it may want to consider regulating healthcare practitioners' access to EMRs, standardizing EMR systems, providing users with financial aid, training users in the new technology, adding the ethical issues of EMR to medical education, training and practice, and changing the resistant attitude among practitioners.