Factors associated with the implementation and adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) in Saudi Arabia

The scope of this study was to identify the extent of the relationship between the factors that associated with delay in the universal implementation of electronic healthcare records (EHRs) and how to effect on the quality and efficiency of work and acceptance of implementation EHRs System in Saudi Arabia hospitals. The Proposed research aimed at pinpointing the precise technological issues that affected on the EHRs system implementation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, by focusing on those factors which are recognized to be barriers for such implementations. Using a questionnaire that was distributed to Ten Hospitals and the Directorate of Health Affairs in Saudi Arabia. These hospitals are King Fahad Hospital, Baljurashi Hospital, Aqiq Hospital, Psychiatric Hospital, Mandaq Hospital, Karra Hospital, Rehabilitation Hospital, Mikwah Hospital, Qilwa Hospital, Hajra Hospital, and General Directorate of Health Affairs. This study attempted to identify which barriers actually affect the implementation of EHR systems in Saudi Arabia. For a confidence interval of 5% at the 95% confidence level, 260 surveys needed to be sent out at the largest hospital, King Fahad Hospital, and the total surveyed sent out to all hospitals was 1754. Six groups of health care professionals participated in this study: physicians, pharmacists, nurses, lab technicians, administration staff, and medical records staff.;Pearson correlation analysis and a t-test test were used on the collected questionnaire data to identify the association factors which are significant barriers to EHRs implementations in Saudi Arabia. Results indicate that there is a relationship between believes that privacy and security concerns were not a significant obstacle, whenever the facility had enough employees to ensure that the implemented EHRs was secure and that maintaining and updating EHRs systems was not too expensive they were more likely to believe that the implementation EHRs would increase the quality and efficiency of work in hospitals. Also the data show that no statistically significant difference between the belief that EHRs system maintenance as one of the four most important barriers influencing the success of EHRs and the belief that the implementation EHRs would increase the quality and efficiency of work in hospitals, The data also show that Despite that privacy and security concerns were not a significant obstacle and whenever the facility had enough employees to ensure that the implemented EHRs was secure will increase the quality and efficiency of work in hospitals. Also, of the six barriers recognized as being of inhibit to the implementation of EHRs systems, the four most commonly cited to be significant in Saudi Arabia by participants were lack of computer skills, adaptation to new technology, costs of the EHRs system, privacy and security concerns.