The adoption of the national programme for information technology in the NHS: the case of Lorenzo

This thesis is concerned with the aspect of Health Informatics that relates to IT adoption in the NHS. It focuses on the identification of the factors that influence significantly the implementation of LORENZO, the Electronic Health Record system that is being implemented in the Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) in the North, Midlands, and East of England (NME) region as part of the National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT) in the NHS. As a result of a review of the literature it was concluded that the study should be based on the underlying ideas of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). However, rather than the quantitative approach usually associated with the TAM, a qualitative research methodology was used to approach this area. The data was obtained by conducting face-to-face semi-structured interviews with people who represented the end users in the NHS and the designing company (the LSP). By contrast with most academic studies, the research, therefore, studied the NPfIT from the bottom up (i.e. the end user perspective). NVivo was used to aid the analysis of the interview data. This analysis was used to develop an extended TAM model and to suggest a theoretical model of the relationship between LORENZO development methodology and users' acceptance.