Learning for healthy outcomes: Exploration and exploitation with electronic medical records

Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems have been a focus of the healthcare sector and have seen significant deployment around the world in recent years. Despite high expectations and widespread use, the outcomes of EMR have been mixed. In this study, we attempt to understand the dynamics of EMR adoption in the hospital environment through the lens of organizational learning. We find that while exploitative organizational learning is generally correlated with outcomes, the explorative use of EMR is only important to clinicians, and not administrators, in hospitals. Furthermore, combined explorative and exploitative learning does not enhance user benefits, signaling that ambidexterity in EMR is not a significant factor in achieving desirable outcomes. The findings indicate that when studying the implementation of a complex information system such as EMR, the multiplicity of the system functions and organizational separation must be taken into account.