Journal of Healthcare Management - September/October 2016 - 354

J o u r n al of H ealt H care M anageMent 61:5 S epte Mber /o ctober 2016 was used, as it remains a valid means to explain how CCU healthcare professionals perceived usefulness and ease of use of new technologies. The CCU at the small, urban hospital under study has a capacity of 260 acute care beds and approximately 85 healthcare professionals on staff. The unit needs to begin participating in the Medicare & Medicaid EHR Incentive Program. At present, some computer systems in the CCU are designed to save staff time by eliminating phone calls. For example, requests for beds, transporters, housekeeping, maintenance, radiology, and so forth are entered in the hospital's main computer. When received by the designated department, the requested tasks are delegated, thus avoiding the need to make phone calls to different departments. Another computer system enables staff to print forms. However, the CCU does not have an EHR system in place. Although an EHR system had been previously introduced to the CCU, the process was halted early in the implementation phase due to financial issues. The organization was recently acquired by another company, which plans to resume conversion to EHR documentation. Critical care is data intensive. The challenges of EHR documentation in any CCU are magnified by the daily functions of this type of unit, such as frequent charting of medication administration, particularly of intravenous drugs; physical assessments; nurse notes; testing; procedures; vital sign documentation (e.g., heart rate and blood pressure readings required every 15 minutes); and changes in patients' health status (Toolabi, Vanaki, Memarian, & Namdari, 2012). Although improvements in critical care monitoring have been made, healthcare, for the most part, lags other industries in embracing technology (De Georgia et al., 2015). According to De Georgia et al. (2015, p. 1), "acquiring, synchronizing, integrating, and analyzing patient data remain frustratingly difficult because of incompatibilities among monitoring equipment, proprietary limitations from industry, and the absence of standard data formatting." Understanding staff's perceptions of using new computer technologies is relevant to a CCU at this small, urban hospital because if healthcare professionals are resistant, their unwillingness to embrace the new technologies may delay successful implementation and compromise patient care. In particular, the CCU risks not meeting the demands and needs of customers, providers, and the community, which also creates a competitive disadvantage for the organization in its market. METHODS Action Research Action research is a systematic approach to investigating effective solutions to everyday problems. In contrast to traditional scientific research, action research seeks to gain improved understanding of the situation to address problems (Stringer, 2014). Action research was the most appropriate approach for this study because it allowed the researchers to grasp how a CCU in a small, urban hospital could best maximize the participation of its 354

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Journal of Healthcare Management - September/October 2016