Impediments to the Implementation of Healthcare Information Technology: A Systematic Literature Review 

The healthcare industry has seen a splurge in information technology investments largely due to the incentives offered by the government for its adoption as well as the penalties imposed under the HITECH Act of 2009. This has resulted in extensive research on Healthcare Information Technology (HIT) in recent years. In this study, we follow a systematic literature review across diverse disciplines ranging from management, information systems, and healthcare, and find that successful implementation of HIT follows three inter-related stages - adoption stage, integration stage, and sustenance stage. Given the uniqueness of healthcare industry with respect to knowledge-intensity and power hierarchy within job positions, we ascertain impediments that impact HIT implementation. Major impediments we identified include limited user buy-in, lack of risk assessment and safety measure during the adoption stage, physician resistance, spillover effect, standardized training, negative viewpoint in the integration stage, and lack of interoperability in the sustenance stage. Identifying and classifying impediments through a systematic literature review is the first step towards operationalizing these impediments and creating effective interventions to minimize their effect on HIT performance.

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