| dc.description.abstract | This research sought to explore factors influence of the adoption of Electronic Health
Record systems in the provision of health services in Kenya by focusing on small private
health care facilities in Ruiru district, Kiambu County. Electronic health records assist in
collecting and storage of patients’ data which can be retrieved in summary form to give a
brief overview of the patients’ medical history. This study was guided by four research
objectives: financial implication, level of ICT knowledge, access to ICT infrastructure
and the perception of the health care practitioners. Other variables examined were; years
of experience, gender, the duration of computer and Internet use, and the frequency of
ICT use among health care practitioners. The study was hinged on the Technology
Acceptance Model as the key theoretical model. The web of interrelationships between
the study variables was demonstrated by a conceptual framework. The study adopted a
descriptive survey design with a target population of 76 health care practitioners in
charge of the registered small private health facilities and a sample size of 63 obtained
from the Krejcie and Morgan table. A six level questionnaire with both structured and
unstructured questions with a 5-point likert scale was used. Pilot testing of the instrument
was done using a group of respondents with similar characteristics as the sample
population prior to the main research study to verify its validity and reliability. Both
quantitative and qualitative data was sought in this research. Quantitative data was
coded and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Qualitative data was analyzed by making
inferences from the expressions and opinions of the respondents around the variables.
The findings were presented in frequency tables and explanation presented in prose. 90%
of the small health facilities don’t have an ICT budget in their conception of operation. 92
% of the population is concerned about the high costs of investment while 72 % of the
population is either sure or not sure that their costs from EHR implementation will be
recovered. 57% of were of the age group that is technology receptive, and 94% had basic
computer skills, but 72 % still felt that the EHR systems were still very complex to use.
74% of the population does not use computers in their practice. 81% had concerns about
accessibility to training and support while 30% of the non adopters who had implemented
the systems then stopped using them complained about their training and post-sale
experience with their vendors. 89.4% of the population could use computers as a tool to
aid their operation while 88.63% felt that the use of computers was reliable. 67% don’t
have sufficient time required to learn the system proficiently. 75% reported concerns
about data entry workload: Only 2% reported to have fully implemented EHR systems,
24% are using both paper and electronic systems while 74% are not using any EHR
systems. This results show a very low adoption status of the EHR systems. From the
findings it can be concluded that Lack of capital resources was analyzed to have the most
influence in the adoption while security and privacy concern had the least influence. The
main recommendations were for Medical training schools to adapt using of EHRs in
training their students, vendors to ensure their software are quality and offer after sale
services and for the Government of Kenya to come up with standardization policies for
the developers to follow. Further studies can be carried out on comparison between the
attitudes of adopters vs. Non-adopters and also to establish if location of health facility
has influence on adoption i.e. urban or rural setting. | en_US |
