Readiness to use electronic medical record systems and its associated factors among health care professionals in Ethiopia: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Electronic medical record systems (EMRs) are being incorporated into the healthcare system to modernize it, but it is also intended to save lives by promoting communication and evidence-based decision-making. Ethiopia is one of the developing nations with the lowest acceptance and utilization of EMRs, even though they are a crucial instrument for the delivery of healthcare. The pooled prevalence of readiness to use electronic medical record systems is unknown. As a result, this study assesses systematic review and meta-analysis to identify the pooled levels of readiness to use EMRs and associated factors among health professionals in Ethiopia. Method: Search engines were used to locate studies that adhered to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols in Medline, PubMed, Scopus, EMBASE, African Journal Online (AJOL), HINARI, Science direct, and Web-Science (PRISMA). The STATA version 11 program was used to carry out the investigation. The heterogeneity among the included papers was evaluated using the indicator of heterogeneity (I2). A visual examination of the funnel plot was employed to investigate potential publication bias. A random-effect model meta-analysis is used to assess the pooled effect size of each study with a 95% confidence interval. Result: Three studies in total were utilized to evaluate the relationship between readiness to use an electronic medical record system and attitude. The systematic and meta-analysis revealed that the pooled prevalence of readiness to use electronic medical record systems was 51.31% (95% CI: 40.54–62.07). Furthermore, participants with a positive attitude (Adjusted OR (AOR) = 2.26 (95% CI: 1.36–3.75, having computer literacy (Adjusted OR (AOR) = 2.98 (95% CI: 1.60–5.58) and having good knowledge (Adjusted OR (AOR) = 2.54 (95% CI: 1.67–3.46) were significant factors associated with readiness to use electronic medical record system among health care professionals in Ethiopia. Conclusion and recommendations: The overall pooled level of readiness of health professionals for the implementation of the EMR was found to be low. Raising the level of knowledge, attitude, and computer skills among health professionals requires comprehensive capacity-building packages for the sustainable improvement of readiness to use EMRs.