As a nurse, you can have a great impact on the success or failure of the adoption of EHRs. It is important for nurses to understand their role as change agents and the ways they can influence others when addressing the challenges of changing to a drastically different way of doing things.

Everett Rogers, a pioneer in the field of the diffusion of innovations, identified five qualities that determine individual attitudes towards adopting new technology (2003). He theorized that individuals are concerned with:

elative advantage: The individual adopting the new innovation must see how it will be an improvement over the old way of doing things.

ompatibility with existing values and practices: The adopter must understand how the new innovation aligns with current practices.

implicity: The adopter must believe he or she can easily master the new technology; the more difficult learning the new system appears, the greater the resistance that will occur.

rialability: The adopter should have the opportunity to ,ay around7ith the new technology and explore its capabilities.

bservable results: The adopter must have evidence that the proposed innovation has been successful in other situations.

For this Assignment, you assume the role of a nurse facilitator in a small hospital in upstate New York. You have been part of a team preparing for the implementation of a new electronic health records system. Decisions as to the program that will be used have been finalized, and you are now tasked with preparing the nurses for the new system. There has been an undercurrent of resistance expressed by nurses, and you must respond to their concerns. You have a meeting scheduled with the nurses 1 week prior to the training on the new EHR system. Consider how you can use the five qualities outlined by Rogers (2003) to assist in preparing the nurses for the upcoming implementation.

To prepare

eview the Learning Resources this week about successful implementations of EHRs.

onsider how you would present the new EHR system to the nurses to win their approval.

eflect on the five qualities outlined by Rogers. How would addressing each of those areas improve the likelihood of success?

Write a 3- to 5-page paper which includes the following:

sing Rogers(2003) theory as a foundation, outline how you would approach the meeting with the nurses. Be specific as to the types of information or activities you could provide to address each area and include how you would respond to resistance.

nalyze the role of nurses as change agents in facilitating the adoption of new technology.

Required Readings

McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2015). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (3rd ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning. 

• Chapter 15,      (e Electronic Health Record and Clinical Informaticsr>
       This chapter describes the crucial parts of an electronic health record      system and explores the benefits of implementing one.

Bates