JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Interorganizational collaboration (IOC) throughout the development, evaluation, or implementation phases of eHealth is required to encounter the barriers to a successful implementation. This IOC is complex because organizational boundaries, differences between organizations, occur that facilitate or hinder IOC. Whether and when these organizational boundaries and the use of dialogical learning mechanisms to deal with organizational boundaries hinder or facilitate IOC is presented for a subset of organizations and/or phases.

Objective:

To consolidate the available literature that contains barriers and facilitators of IOC throughout the development, evaluation, and implementation phases of eHealth with the boundary spanning lens.

Methods:

A scoping review with searches that covered PubMed, PsycINFO, and Web of Science databases was conducted. Articles that were English or Dutch-written empirical studies and contained findings on what influenced IOC during the development and/or evaluation and/or implementation phases of eHealth deployment were eligible for inclusion. Specifically, the search yielded 11.867 articles of which 16 articles were eligible. Open and axial coding on the extracted findings was performed to obtain the organizational boundaries and dialogical learning mechanisms that hindered or facilitated IOC during eHealth deployment.

Results:

In each phase different organizational boundaries hindered and/or facilitated IOC. The dialogical learning mechanism Identification was crucial for enhancing IOC and was enhanced by following training or establishing IOC from previous relationships. In addition, the dialogical learning Coordination improved IOC and relied on the involvement of boundary spanners, individuals that span organizational boundaries, and the use of boundary objects, artifacts that bridge different social worlds. Furthermore, the learning mechanism Reflection, established via open and frequent communication, facilitated IOC. The dialogical mechanism Transformation did not affect IOC throughout the deployment of eHealth.

Conclusions:

IOC on eHealth deployment is a dynamic process that relies on the dialogical learning mechanisms Identification, Coordination, and Reflection to deal with organizational boundaries. This review is first in presenting organizational boundaries and dialogical learning mechanisms that influence IOC per eHealth deployment phase. However, more research considering the different phases is needed to understand IOC on eHealth deployment.