Health Information Technology and Business Process Reengineering

The benefits of adopting Information Technology (IT) to improve patient care have been well researched. Studies have shown underinvestment of HIT as a leading contributor to operational inefficiencies (Kennedy, Kiken, & Jean, 2008). The usage and support of HIT’s are dependent upon Business Process Reengineering (BPR). This integrates a complete range of business processes and automated essential functions in order to present a holistic view of the business (Mohapatra, 2012). However, numerous health care professionals remain astonishingly defiant. Despite growing interests to adopt HIT to improve safety and quality, adoption remains limited. This is especially seen in the areas of ambulatory electronic health records and physician-patient communication (Poon, et al., 2006). Why do health care providers remain defiant, what contributes to ambulatory’s exceptional defiance?

Previous research suggests that technology adoption models work well in business environments. This does not explain the technology adoption process. There is a conflict to technology adoption in the health care industry. The adoption process would  facilitate the implementation of a full range of the HIT’s in health organizations. The objective of this article is to investigate the use of BPR to implement HIT. The paper will consist of the following sections: background; issues controversies, and problems; solutions and recommendation; future research directions; and finally the conclusion. This will enhance the field of Medical Technologies and its influences on all aspects of modern organizations and society in general.