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The Effects of Creating Psychological Ownership on Physicians' Acceptance of Clinical Information Systems

Affiliations of the authors: Canada Research Chair in Information Technology in Health Care, HEC Montréal (GP); Health Administration Department, Faculty of Medicine, University of Montreal (CS); Deloitte Inc. (HJ), Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Correspondence and reprints: Guy Paré, PhD, Canada Research Chair in Information Technology in Health Care, HEC Montréal, 3000 Chemin de la Côte-Ste-Catherine, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3T 2A7; e-mail: <guy.pare{at}hec.ca>.

Received for publication: 08/05/05; accepted for publication: 10/13/05.

Objective: Motivated by the need to push further our understanding of physicians' acceptance of clinical information systems, we propose a relatively new construct, namely, psychological ownership. We situated the construct within a nomological net using a prevailing and dominant information technology adoption behavior model as a logical starting point.

Design: A mail survey was sent to the population of users of a regional physician order entry (POE) system aimed at speeding up the transmission of clinical data, mainly laboratory tests and radiology examinations, within a community health network.

Measurements: All scales, but one, were measured using previously validated instruments. For its part, the psychological ownership scale was developed using a multistage iterative procedure.

Results: Ninety-one questionnaires were returned to the researchers, for a response rate of 72.8%. Our findings reveal that, in order to foster physicians' adoption of a clinical information system, it is important to encourage and cultivate a positive attitude toward using the new system. In this connection, positive perception of the technology's usefulness is crucial. Second, results demonstrate that psychological ownership of a POE system is positively associated with physicians' perceptions of system utility and system user friendliness. Last, through their active involvement and participation, physicians feel they have greater influence on the development process, thereby developing feelings of ownership toward the clinical system.

Conclusion: Psychological ownership's highly significant associations with user participation and crucial beliefs driving technology acceptance behaviors among physicians affirm the value of this construct in extending our understanding of POE adoption.