IT-enabled Knowledge Management in Primary Care Settings: An Absorptive Capacity Perspective

Primary care medical practices have made sizable IT investments in recent years, primarily deploying electronic medical record (EMR) systems as well as Web-based elearning applications. The basic assumption here is that developing IT-enabled knowledge management capabilities may significantly improve the innovation and clinical performance of these organizations. Increasing uncertainty in their environment requires them to develop greater absorptive capacity (ACAP), i.e. an organizational learning capability to deal with the external sources of this uncertainty. In applying ACAP theory to primary care settings, this study seeks to answer the following research questions: What are the e-learning and EMR capabilities developed by primary care medical practices in response to increasing environmental uncertainty? To what extent does the development of an e-learning capability influence the development of an EMR capability? To what extent does building ACAP contribute to positive outcomes in terms of medical practices' innovation and clinical performance?