Measuring adaptation to medical technology

The purpose of this paper is to present a procedure developed to monitor adaptation over time to a new technology. The authors conceive of the concept of adaptation as the way that a person learns to use and work appropriately with the new technology. There is a negative pole and a positive pole; the negative pole being resistance; the positive pole, cooperation. Both poles of adaptation should be studied in order to help healthcare executives understand why some people seem to be cooperative and willing to adjust to the new demands, while others seem to be hostile and resistant to the changes created by the new technology. The procedure presented here to assess and monitor adaptation to a new technology was developed as part of a large scale project to evaluate a medical information system (MIS) being implemented in a large urban medical center in the midwest.