Motivations Underlying the Adoption of ERP Systems in Healthcare Organizations: An Analysis from "Success Stories"

In order to deal with continuous drastic increases in healthcare spending and major demographic changes, governments in industrialised countries are initiating major reforms aimed at improving the efficiency and the quality of care services provided to their citizens. These reforms along with increasing requirements for accountability tend to "corporatize" these institutions by exposing them to market-like pressures. To face their changing environment, healthcare institutions have invested in ERP systems as their basic technological infrastructure, highlighting a phenomenon that recalls the earlier popularity of the ERP movement with private companies. Based on the analysis of 180 public "success stories, " the main objective of this study is to identify and characterize the sets of motivations that lead to the adoption of ERP systems in healthcare organizations. Our findings indicate that these motivations can be classified into six categories, namely technological, managerial operational, managerial strategic, clinical operational, clinical strategic, and financial. Three clusters of healthcare organizations were identified with regard to these motivations, and labelled as a Business View, a Clinical View, and an Institutional View of ERP systems.