Organizational and individual barriers to implementing emergency medical records in healthcare settings

EMR Implementation

Organizational and Individual Barriers to EMR Implementation

Organizational Barriers

The changes necessary on an organizational level when it comes to implementing a new Emergency Medical Record (EMR) system can be quite substantial and thus can encounter numerous barriers. A lack of effective leadership generally can be a major barrier to implementing any change in an organization, and specifically the unwillingness for management or leadership to deal with individual resistance to change can be quite prohibitive in effectively accomplishing it (Rosenberg & Mosca, 2011). When it comes specifically to implementing a new EMR system, this can arise in the form of a lack of focus for the purpose and the steps involved in the actual implementation, which would be a demonstration of general poor leadership. A lack of follow-through and management initiative in confronting difficulties or resistance to actual implementation at the operational level would be part of the second problem identified, and would demonstrate a fundamental organizational problem when it came to implementing any change (Rosenberg & Mosca, 2011).

EMR systems require monitoring and use at many levels of a typical hospital organization, and thus a certain level of knowledge and control from a leadership/managerial perspective over operational personnel is necessary in implementation. The organizational problems identified above are directly detrimental to implementing this change because they limit or negate the amount of communication and control in the organization. This illustrates why organizational structure and culture are of overall importance, as well.

Individual Barriers

Though the organizational barriers facing a hospital organization attempting EMR implementation can be significant, the individual barriers can potentially be even worse. It has already been noted that a lack of managerial acknowledgement of operational resistance to change and a lack of effectively dealing with these issues can be a problem; while this is ultimately an organizational problem, it is built on individual resistances to change (Rosenberg & Mosca, 2011). If individuals are having difficulty simply using the software, or if they don't feel that using the EMR system would be beneficial to their patients or to their practice, this could contribute to more widespread and significant barriers when it comes to implementing the system. This is true regardless of whether or not there are other organizational issues, though of course adequate organizational structures would make it easier to surmount these barriers.