Organizational status of quality assurance and end-user perceptions of information technology for information management.

This article investigates the relationship between quality assurance (QA) and perceptions of the importance of information technology (IT) for information management in the health care industry. This issue is important because effective information management is recognized as a necessary condition for quality management. The unit of analysis of the article is the health care functional department. Data from 34 health care departments were collected and used for the analysis. Four specific hypotheses were proposed and tested. Our results suggest that end-user perceptions of the importance of IT for information management depends on formalization of QA, perceived importance of QA, time since QA was embraced, and number of people in the QA function. Copyright © 2000 by Aspen Publishers, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]