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As a result of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), healthcare organizations are finding themselves scrambling to digitize their Electronic Medical Records (EMRs). A concern of the widespread implementation of digital health records is the assurance of privacy for the sensitive information held by healthcare organizations (Greenberg, 2010; Hoffmann, 2009). There have been many studies that examine patient’s perspectives and expectations of privacy (Agarwal & Anderson, 2011; Cannoy & Salam, 2010) but the literature is lacking analysis of healthcare providers’ privacy perspectives with regards to EMRs. Using Information Boundary Theory (Stanton, 2002) as a theoretical framework, this study seeks to determine healthcare providers’ attitudes towards privacy with regards to EMRs. Analysis of survey data collected from healthcare providers found that healthcare providers do not value patient privacy over personal or organizational gain.

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Healthcare Professionals’ Attitudes towards Privacy in Healthcare Information Systems

As a result of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), healthcare organizations are finding themselves scrambling to digitize their Electronic Medical Records (EMRs). A concern of the widespread implementation of digital health records is the assurance of privacy for the sensitive information held by healthcare organizations (Greenberg, 2010; Hoffmann, 2009). There have been many studies that examine patient’s perspectives and expectations of privacy (Agarwal & Anderson, 2011; Cannoy & Salam, 2010) but the literature is lacking analysis of healthcare providers’ privacy perspectives with regards to EMRs. Using Information Boundary Theory (Stanton, 2002) as a theoretical framework, this study seeks to determine healthcare providers’ attitudes towards privacy with regards to EMRs. Analysis of survey data collected from healthcare providers found that healthcare providers do not value patient privacy over personal or organizational gain.