Advances in the study of diffusion of innovation in health care organizations

Abstract

Federal government programs of the 1960s to rapidly diffuse technologies have been displaced on the '70s by efforts to constrain costly technological growth. As a guide to action, the understanding of reasons for adoption of innovation is essential; but the utility of available diffusion theory is limited by its focus on the speed of diffusion rather than any reasons for its adoption by organizations. In a practical sense, more is known about the administrator as decision maker than about those increasing situatiions in which physicians play a more central part. Until coherent, empirically grounded theories of organizational innovation are available, large-scale "tests" are premature and wasteful.