This study aims to understand IT investment decisions from the perspective of
senior health system executives. A two-stage study was used to investigate this
highly influential, very specialized and small population of interest. The first
stage involved qualitative interviews with top health executives and analysed
their opinions and beliefs using an innovation diffusion theory framework. The
second stage involved quantitative surveys of senior health executives to gain
an understanding of their opinions regarding the organizational and
technological drivers (the independent variables) and the level of IT adoption
(the dependent variable). It was found that the majority of drivers identified
as being significant to organizational and technological innovation are degraded
in respect to IT and health. It was concluded that health executives hold a
range of views that potentially inhibit the increased adoption of IT in health.
In particular, beliefs about the technology itself have been identified as the
most influential deterrents.