Towards a national implementation of the electronic locum record: Analysis of a regional approach in the Netherlands

New technology enables an increase in the possibilities within the health care industry. However, many developed countries are making little progress in this field and yet there is a lot to improve upon. This paper will focus on the development of the electronic locum record (ELR), which is used among health care providers to exchange data in the Netherlands. This research includes an analysis of a regional approach of data exchange that proved to be successful in the Twente region. The adoption process will be investigated by analysing several interviews with general practitioners (GPs) and experts in the region combined with a literature review. This paper analyses the future development of the national service, which has already been established but most of the Dutch citizens are not aware of this, although they have to give permission before their data can be exchanged. Therefore, this paper has identified and described the factors that play an important role in the adoption process of the ELR. Trust, perceived risks and social influence have shown to be important. The role of change agents, type of innovation decisions and monetary incentives have also proved to influence the rate of adoption of the ELR in Twente.