Hopes and fears in implementation of electronic health records in Bangladesh

Health is seen as a major key for development and many developing country governments invest in ICT-based Health Information Systems (HIS). The purpose of this paper is to explore physicians’ hopes and fears for implementing Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems in Bangladeshi hospitals. Data was collected through interviews and observations at two Bangladeshi hospitals. We found very little use of EHR systems at the hospitals and many physicians were skeptical of using EHR systems. Whereas this skepticism could be seen as a symptom of backward thinking our analysis found much of this skepticism to be reasonable. In this way this research contributes to the ongoing debate on how to implement HIS in developing countries. We articulate and analyze users’ concerns beyond mere “attitudes” and “acceptance”. Our results show that the fears and concerns on the hospital floors are legitimate and should be taken into consideration when HIS projects are initiated.