title: 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.
mesh_terms: D003405:Creativity; D003657:Decision Making; D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D006268:Health Facilities / Q000191:economics; D058016:Health Facility Administration; D006270:Health Facility Administrators; D006801:Humans; D013677:Medical Laboratory Science; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011640:Public Policy; D014481:United States