The Four Faces of Electronic Health Record Adopters: A Patients’ Typology Based on Perceived Benefits and Concerns: An Abstract

Patients’ adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) varies substantially. Governments need to deal with the patients’ disparities to reach the expected high performance for healthcare systems, grasp efficiency, and improve the quality of diagnoses and care delivery. This study investigates patients’ perceived benefits and concerns of EHR in order to develop a typology of patients, identify characteristics of different clusters, and propose practical measures for public policy makers.

Cluster analyses identified four patient clusters: the worried, qualified by the highest means of privacy concerns and perceived risk, are the most concerned by health data disclosure. Conversely, the ready adopters, showing an absolute lack of privacy concerns and risks, are the most motivated by EHR benefits. Yet, compared to the worried, concerned adopters express far less privacy concerns about their health data and perceive more favourably EHR benefits. Finally, the balanced adopters, relatively close to the ready adopters for EHR motives, are still concerned about their health data, suggesting a segment easier to convince of EHR adoption. ANOVA analyses on intentions to create EHR and willingness to disclose health data across clusters confirm that ready adopters, followed by balanced adopters, are more likely to create an EHR and disclose health data. The concerned adopters and lastly the worried exhibit the lowest intentions for EHR creation and data disclosure.

Results provide meaningful insights of patients’ profiles and expectations regarding EHR adoption. Findings underscore the need to (1) implement particular targeting policies for each cluster and (2) design concrete solutions for improving EHR performance.