Boon-Yuen Ng

Workarounds in the use of IS in healthcare: A case study of an electronic medication administration system

Healthcare information systems such as an Electronic Medication Administration System (EMAS) have the potential to enhance productivity, lower costs, and reduce medication errors. However, various issues have arisen from the use of these systems. A key issue relates to workarounds as a result of a misfit between the new information system (IS) implementation and existing work processes. However, there is a lack of understanding and studies on healthcare IS workarounds and their outcomes. This paper applies the theoretical perspectives of accommodation to misfit and IS evolution to understand the phenomenon through an in-depth case study of an EMAS implemented in a large public hospital. Based on the findings, it develops a process framework to explain how the benefits, issues, and workarounds inter-relate and determine the impacts of the system. The findings have implications for research and practice on workarounds in the use of healthcare IS.

Analyzing the enabling factors for the organizational decision to adopt healthcare information systems

Abstract Technological advancements have accelerated the deployment of healthcare information systems (HIS) with the potential to enhance productivity, lower costs, reduce medication errors, and ease the manpower strain on the healthcare industry. A recent development is the use of wireless vital signs monitoring systems for ubiquitous patient care. Although these systems can provide various benefits to healthcare professionals and patients, there is a high incidence of unsuccessful HIS projects and problems with initiating their adoption. Particularly, the role of pilot studies for initiating adoption and the enabling factors for the decision to adopt HIS are unclear. Motivated thus, this paper applies the technology–organization–environment perspective to obtain a holistic understanding of the phenomenon. A framework of factors leading to an adoption decision for wireless vital signs monitoring systems is developed through a cross-case analysis of pilot trials conducted in two large public hospitals. With differing adoption decisions, findings from the two cases are synthesized to create the framework that identifies the enabling factors and shows their inter-relationships in facilitating the adoption of these HIS.

Examining the pre-adoption stages of healthcare IT

Abstract Pervasive healthcare systems can reduce the costs and improve the quality of healthcare. However, insufficient care in managing the process before the organizational decision to adopt information technology (IT) can result in poor outcomes. With most previous research focusing on IT adoption, this paper develops a multi-stage theoretical framework for the pre-adoption phase of healthcare IT to address this practical challenge and gap in the literature. With a priori concepts identified from previous multi-stage models, our framework was developed by analyzing two cases of the introduction of vital signs monitoring systems in hospitals to identify the important stages and influencing factors for healthcare IT pre-adoption.

Individual’s Response to Security Messages: A Decision-Making Perspective

Individual decision making determines critical outcomes for organizations in various domains including information security, where the increase of security incidents is causing great concern to organizations. Information security awareness programs are an important approach towards educating users to prevent such incidents. However, it is unclear how to effectively design security programs and messages such that they can inform and change user behavior. This paper attempts to investigate this problem by studying the effects of security message characteristics on users, using the decision-making theory of elaboration likelihood. A 2×2 factorial design experiment was conducted to determine the influence of message repetition and message comprehensibility on user’s elaboration likelihood towards a security message. Our findings indicate that message repetition enhances elaboration likelihood of users. Message comprehensibility interacts with message repetition in determining elaboration likelihood. The results have implications for designing effective security messages and for decision support systems for this purpose.