The Effects of Information Privacy Concerns on Digitizing Personal Health Records

Electronic health record (EHR) systems can improve service efficiency and quality within the health care sector and thus have been widely considered for adoption. Yet the introduction of such systems has caused much concern about patients' information privacy. This study provides new insights into how privacy concerns play a role in patients' decisions to permit digitization of their personal health information. We conducted an online experiment and collected data from 164 patients who are involved in the nonmandatory EHR adoption in the Netherlands. We found that the negative effect of information privacy concerns on patients' willingness to opt in is influenced by the degree of EHR system interoperability and patients' ability to control disclosure of their information. The results show that, for a networked EHR system, the negative effect of privacy concerns on opt-in behavior was reinforced more than for the stand-alone system. The results also suggest that giving patients greater ability to control their information can alleviate their privacy concerns when they make opt-in decisions. We discuss the implications of these findings.