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Abstract

Objectives: To assesses the challenges of implementing electronic medical records (EMR) from the leaders' perspective in public hospitals in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), and explores their suggestions for improvement. Methods: A concurrent mixed research approach using a purposive sample of all hospital leaders (61) involved in EMR in 5 randomly selected public hospitals utilizing EMR in Riyadh. The researchers deployed a semi-structured interview schedule to collect the data. They used descriptive statistics and ordinal regression analysis for quantitative data, and thematic analysis for qualitative data. Results: Indicate that 80.3% of the hospital leaders had a good perception of EMR implementation. They also reported a high level of staff perception (88.5%). The ordinal regression analysis shows that sufficient infrastructure (p = 0.003) and the total staff perception score (p = 0.002) are significant predictors of higher perceptions of EMR implementation. Thematic analysis identified several implementation challenges: training and adoption (29.5%), system issues (23%), time (21.3%), change management (16.4%), and infrastructure/data management (4.9%). Suggested improvements emphasized user training and education (34.4%), system enhancements (24.6%), user involvement and feedback (18%), infrastructure and resources (13%), project management (6.6%), and implementation strategy (3.3%). Conclusion: Hospital leaders play a critical role in EMR implementation and adoption, a topic underrepresented in the existing literature. It highlights the need for collaboration among IT professionals, healthcare staff, and policymakers to address ongoing challenges.

Article Type

Original Study

First Page

479

Last Page

488

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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