Evaluation of the impacts of innovation in the health care sector: a comparative analysis

Assessing impacts related to the adoption of an innovation represents a particular challenge. However, the use of innovation in government organizations does have some effects: some intended, others unintended; some desirable, others undesirable. Findings in literature now suggest that the use of innovation in government organizations produces beneficial results for the most part. The purpose of this article is to provide a multi-dimensional framework for assessing the impacts of innovation on an organization’s performance as perceived by individual stakeholders and at organizational level. In particular, this framework is designed to evaluate the impacts resulting from the introduction of electronic medical records, namely an organizational, cultural, and technological innovation that many health care providers are currently undertaking. It provides the results of a comparative analysis carried out in Spain and Italy and discusses the need for a more systematic evaluation assessment of the innovation processes.