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The implementation of hospital-wide Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) is still an unsolved quest for many hospital managers. EMRs have long been considered a key factor for improving healthcare quality and safety, reducing adverse events for patients, decreasing costs, optimizing processes, improving clinical research and obtaining best clinical performances. However, hospitals continue to experience resistance from professionals to accepting EMRs. This study combines institutional and individual factors to explain which determinants can trigger or inhibit the EMRs implementation in hospitals, and which variables managers can exploit to guide professionals' behaviours. Data have been collected through a survey administered to physicians and nurses in an Italian University Hospital in Rome. A total of 114 high-quality responses had been received. Results show that both, physicians and nurses, expect many benefits from the use of EMRs. In particular, it is believed that the EMRs will have a positive impact on quality, efficiency and effectiveness of care; handover communication between healthcare workers; teaching, tutoring and research activities; greater control of your own business. Moreover, data show an interplay between individual and institutional determinants: normative factors directly affect perceived usefulness (C = 0.30 **), perceived ease of use (C = 0.26 **) and intention to use EMRs (C = 0.33 **), regulative factors affect the intention to use EMRs (C = -0.21 **), and perceived usefulness directly affect the intention to use EMRs (C = 0.33 **). The analysis carried out shows that the key determinants of the intention to use EMRs are the normative ones (peer influence) and the individual ones (perceived usefulness), and that perceived usefulness works also as a mediator between normative factors and intention to use EMRs. Therefore, Management can leverage on power users to motivate, generate and manage change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role played by family caregivers in delivering long-term care is crucial: they enhance the quality of care perceived by the patients and support the shift to out-of-hospital care. However, taking care of a relative entails a huge burden that usually begins with the patient's hospital discharge and may mean that caregivers become patients in need of care as well. Owing to socio-demographic trends, informal caregiving is the most important source of care in community settings; hence targeting the caregivers' burden properly is crucial. This study explores how action research (AR) can be used to develop new hospital practices to manage the burden borne by family caregivers when patients are discharged from hospital. The 7-month-long action research reported in this paper consisted of three stages (burden identification, burden sharing, and burden management) and it was conducted in a teaching hospital in Rome (Italy). Both quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (focus groups and simulation sessions) techniques were used to engage participants. The AR demonstrates that there is a feasible way in which hospital managers can address proactively the caregivers' needs in the hospital discharge process, to the advantage of the patients and the entire community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]