Getting Personal About Electronic Health Records: Modeling the Beliefs of Personal Health Record Users and Non-Users

Abstract:     
Although the impact that information technology can have on the delivery of health care is widely acknowledged, surprisingly, empirical investigation of this impact has been limited. One explanation for the paucity of rigorous studies is that practitioners and scholars alike, struggle with the fact that health information technology (HIT) is diffusing at a relatively slow rate compared to other industries, and thus there are limited avenues for pursuing this type of investigation. In this paper we draw on theories of cognition and use a large data set collected from a nationwide telephone survey to examine the acceptance of HIT. The specific technology examined is the personal health record (PHR). We argue that individuals will engage in a sensemaking process and develop cognitive schemas about electronic PHRs based on factors describing their health situations and technological sophistication. Using factor analysis and structural equation modeling, we first derive the cognitive schema and then test for its effects on the user's willingness to store health information electronically. Results support the proposed conceptualization and yield important implications for future research and practice.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 30

Keywords: Electronic Health Record, EHR, Personal Health Record, PHR, Health Information Technology, HIT, Cognitive Schema, Mental Model

working papers series