The Covid-19 pandemic affected nearly every aspect of the world we live in, from economic and environmental fluctuations to changes in income, education, employment, sustainability, healthcare, and more. The tremendous speed of technological progress in the digital and remote workforce has accelerated the diffusion of digital innovation across all sectors, particularly in primary care within the healthcare sector. Compared to other industries, the slow adoption of technological innovation in healthcare has been a well-researched topic. Although several studies have been published on innovation in healthcare, few have focused on the process of digital innovation adoption by General Practice (GP) Medical centres during a pandemic. While the adoption of digitalised innovation is necessary for healthcare to meet the ever-rising demand for healthcare provision, the digitalisation capabilities of GP medical centres, which are the first point of contact in providing healthcare services within the communities, have surprisingly been neglected from further research. There is evidence that before the Covid-19 pandemic, few GP medical service providers were open to adopting digitalised solutions and innovation, resulting in missed opportunities for overt improvements in efficiency. Pandemics are becoming increasingly frequent due to the increasing human population, globalisation, and climate change. Using digitalised solutions and digitalised innovation to respond to challenges posed by pandemics has been touted as a necessary capability that GP medical service providers must adopt to achieve optimal healthcare service outcomes for their patients. This thesis aims to use the Covid-19 phenomenon to increase the understanding of the digital innovation adoption process and outcome of digitalisation amongst GP medical service providers. To this end, this thesis presents the results of the investigation into how GP medical service providers can respond better to pandemics by adopting digitalised solutions and becoming fluent across different types of digitalisation innovation within the New Zealand healthcare sector. A qualitative research approach was adopted using multiple case study design to achieve this aim. Cases were comprised of GP medical service providers in New Zealand. Data collected from in-depth interviews were analysed by thematic coding, using qualitative analysis software complemented by visual and hand coding. The findings show that GP medical centres have adopted digital solutions by following a forced adoption process to meet the demands of their patients in providing more healthcare services during a pandemic.

Additionally, this thesis contributes to the understanding of digitalisation process enablers and barriers using the product innovation life cycle theory. This understanding is then used to provide relevant guidance regarding the Information Technology (IT) needs that need to be addressed to match the growth in health service demand. Furthermore, dynamic system methodology was used to effectively understand the links between enablers and be in a newly developed innovation life cycle framework for the digitalisation of GP Medical Centres during a pandemic. The further development of the general innovation life cycle framework by integrating enabler and barrier drivers influencing each phase of the digitalisation process is important to healthcare educators, and students as digitalisation transcends technological boundaries. Further research can be considered around the extension of the drivers for digitalisation post-pandemic and assessment of the impact of the digitalisation achieved during and post-pandemic.