User Satisfaction to CPOE Implementation - Thesis Proposal Example

These two studies are significant in that they also show different viewpoints concerning the use of CPOE. With the high cost of implementation and the questioned effectiveness of the system, many hospital administrators find it difficult for physicians to accept CPOE. If the goal of the CPOE is to ensure “safe, comfortable and effective human performance” (Leape & Berwick, 2005) in the delivery of health care services, how can physicians trust a system which has exacerbated various errors in several medical organizations?  Other issues concerning CPOE use also surface. For example, in a study conducted by April Saathoff, she mentioned that some physicians find the system too difficult to use, while others find it demeaning to enter orders in the system, a job typically allotted to ancillary staff (Saathoff, 2010, p.72).

 Recent researches highlight the benefits that CPOE offers and reiterates that health care organizations must utilize information systems to ensure sustainability and continued development. There is a recent consensus on the capability of CPOE to reduce common order errors, but many professionals say that it is not the cure-all solution to all the ills of the health care system. To ensure the success of CPOE implementation, three things must be done: “(a) ensure cultural change that allows for risk-free reporting of errors by employees, (b) use technology and CPOE systems, and (c) implement smaller incremental changes which could potentially affect physician efficiency” (Sengstack & Gugert, 2005, p.39). When creating an implementation plan, administrators must consider not only the technical requirements of implementation, we also factor in physician acceptance of the system. When concerned health personnel chooses not to use the system, then hospital administration will be forced to take it down. Such was the case of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center which turned off its CPOE project in January 2003 after “hundreds of physicians complained that rather than speeding up and improving patient care, it a slowed down the process of filing their orders – assuming those orders didn’t get lost in the system” (Chin, 2003).

According to various literature (Porter Research, 2007; Saathoff, 2010; Sengstack & Gugert, 2005), the acceptance of affected health care professional of the CPOE system is a major determinant to the success or failure of technology implementation. Despite this, however, very few researchers study the factors that affect acceptance or rejection of CPOE implementation. Saathoff (2010) says that to ensure the success of a CPOE system, the administrator must utilize human factors principles and practices in implementation – they must become familiar with the users of the system.