Factors Affecting the Acceptance of E-commerce in Hospitals: A Narrative Review

Abstract

Context: The global use of the Internet has expanded e-commerce as a tangible representation of the information and communication technology (ICT) revolution in all industries. Like other sectors, e-commerce is essential in the healthcare sector for meeting patients’ increasing demands and providing high-quality and cost-effective healthcare services at clinics, hospitals, and other healthcare centers. Objectives: We investigated the factors affecting the acceptance of e-commerce in healthcare centers and hospitals. Evidence Acquisition: In this narrative review, articles indexed in PubMed, Emerald, Scopus, ProQuest, and Google Scholar and published from 2010 to 2021 were searched using the “e-commerce”, “healthcare”, and “hospital” keywords. Inclusion criteria encompassed being conducted in the field of e-commerce in medical and health centers in Iran and the world and published from 2010 to the end of December 2021. Studies in which the role of e-commerce was inconspicuous, those that were irrelevant to healthcare centers, studies failing to note effective research parameters in abstracts, and finally, scientific sources lacking full text were excluded. Finally, ten relevant papers were chosen and analyzed. Results: Based on our findings, today's technologies, such as e-commerce, have influenced the quality of healthcare and investments in the healthcare industry. Besides, high-ranking managers of healthcare centers and hospitals should support the establishment and deployment of e-commerce by providing appropriate facilities to implement such systems, e.g., adequate hardware and software needed to install and efficiently run the system. Conclusions: In this way, the positive effects of e-commerce were shown in all aspects of healthcare centers, including improvements in healthcare services’ quality, enhanced financial performance, and facilitated service provision. It is suggested that health centers provide adequate hardware and software to easily install and run the E-commerce system and other e-health programs so that medical personnel can more easily accept these technologies.