Examining the relationship between a hospital’s IT infrastructure capability and digital capabilities: a resource-based perspective

Hospitals increasingly make use of information technology (IT) infrastructures to enhance their services. However, it remains unclear how IT infrastructures affect clinical and operational excellence. We examine the relationship among hospitals’ IT infrastructure capability and their so-called digital capabilities, i.e., IS competences regarding information processing, digitally enabled clinical decision making, health information exchange, and telehealth. We conceptualize a research model taking a resource-based lens, and we propose two hypotheses. First, we argue that hospitals that invest in their IT infrastructure capability will outperform other hospitals regarding their digital capabilities. Furthermore, as many hospitals receive financial incentives for professionalizing digital services, we hypothesize that the strength of this particular relationship is dependent on such incentives. Findings—based on an SEM-PLS analysis on a sample of 1143 European hospital—suggest that there is a positive relationship between an IT infrastructure capability and digital capabilities, and, surprisingly, financial incentives negatively affects this relationship.