An Empirical Investigation into the Adoption of Open Source Software in Hospitals

Abstract

Open source software (OSS) has gained considerable attention recently in healthcare. Yet, how and why OSS is being adopted within hospitals in particular remains a poorly understood issue. This research attempts to further this understanding. A mixed-method research approach was used to explore the extent of OSS adoption in hospitals as well as the factors facilitating and inhibiting adoption. The findings suggest a very limited adoption of OSS in hospitals. Hospitals tend to adopt general-purpose instead of domain-specific OSS. We found that software vendors are the critical factor facilitating the adoption of OSS in hospitals. Conversely, lack of in-house development as well as a perceived lack of security, quality, and accountability of OSS products were factors inhibiting adoption. An empirical model is presented to illustrate the factors facilitating and inhibiting the adoption of OSS in hospitals.