226 Int. J. Information Systems and Change Management, Vol. 4, No. 3, 2010
Copyright © 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Information systems and change management in
healthcare: the (un)solved quest for changing
physicians’ behaviour
Emanuele Lettieri*, Giovanni Radaelli and
Cristina Masella
Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering,
Politecnico di Milano,
Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy
Fax: +39 02 2399 4083
E-mail: emanuele.lettieri@polimi.it
E-mail: giovanni.radaelli@polimi.it
E-mail: cristina.masella@polimi.it
*Corresponding author
Abstract: This paper identifies 19 factors that affect physicians’ behavioural
changes due to the adoption of new clinical information systems and ten
interventions that hospital managers can introduce to facilitate change
management. Despite information systems have been acknowledged as major
enablers of performance improvement in healthcare delivery, numerous failures
to adopt and implement are documented in the literature. The authors carried
out a systematic literature review to identify factors and interventions that can
facilitate or inhibit physicians’ behavioural changes. Selected factors have been
synthesised assuming the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) as main
theoretical framework. Relationships between factors and interventions have
been reviewed and discussed.
Keywords: information systems; change management; clinical decision
support systems; CDSSs; theory of planned behaviour; TPB; physicians’
acceptance; healthcare.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Lettieri, E., Radaelli, G.
and Masella, C. (2010) ‘Information systems and change management in
healthcare: the (un)solved quest for changing physicians’ behaviour’, Int. J.
Information Systems and Change Management, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp.226–245.
Biographical notes: Emanuele Lettieri is an Assistant Professor at the
Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering at
Politecnico di Milano. His research activities are mainly related to technology
assessment and management of technology, with a focus to healthcare. He is
the co-author of various publications in those research fields. He is the Lecturer
of Economics and Business Administration and he has been involved in various
projects related to performance improvement and change management in
healthcare organisations. At present, he is collaborating an EU funded project
aimed at developing a clinical decision support system for risk management in
hospitals.
Giovanni Radaelli is a PhD student at the Department of Management,
Economics and Industrial Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. His main
interest concerns the mechanisms of adoption and institutionalisation of ICT