A study by the Harvard Business Review shows that health care professionals are among the most cautious when it comes to adopting and implementing new technologies. The study is part of a larger survey of industry executives, who were questioned on their organizations’ approach to technological advances.

Of the health care respondents, 71 percent said they wait until a technology has been established and proven to be effective before investing in it, whereas only 27 percent seek to be among the first adopters. As for which specific technologies health care organizations adopt, the only one that the majority reported was mobile solutions, with an adoption rate of 64 percent.

But the study’s authors noted that early adoption gives organizations a significant advantage — a separate Accenture study found that 41 percent of patients would be willing to change providers entirely if it gave them access to digital records.

Experts are confident that health organizations won’t lag much longer. At The Economist’s Health Care Forum, which was held last week in Boston, Bain Capital managing director Chris Gordon noted that the adoption of electronic health records, which the federal government has spurred on, is creating a vital infrastructure for storing patient data. “Now that information is available and can flow, you’ll see big players come on and we’ll be able to bridge that gap,” he said. “The building blocks are in place to see that over the next decade.”

ETL architecture (extract, transform, load) can help health care providers process that newly available data to draw meaningful conclusions. If the health care industry is willing to be more proactive about adopting technological solutions, patients, physicians and organizations will all benefit.