Adoption of technological innovation in healthcare delivery: A social dynamic perspective

Technological advancements are vital for improving the capacity of the health system to deliver health and wellbeing benefits to individuals. Despite significant financial investments in technological innovations in healthcare, patients are reported to benefit from only 30-50% of new healthcare technologies. We propose that some of the challenges of technology adoption are related to human factors, and specifically to social dynamics in healthcare workplaces, and that organisational psychology perspectives can facilitate our understanding of how to manage these dynamics. The aim of the present paper is to present a framework (TECH-ISM) to empower medical decision-makers to become innovation drivers by influencing the social dynamics are within medical workplaces. Our framework is based on an overview of research on technology adoption, where we highlight the impact of relational and social factors, and how adoption is affected by key relationships in healthcare delivery workplaces. We conclude our paper with a discussion of how medical decision-makers can socialise new technology into the workplace, and the importance of managing these social dynamics over time.