Physicians’ Acceptance of E-Health

Abstract

Physicians’ acceptance of e-health refers to physicians’ voluntary or intended use of e-health services or applications—defined as ‘‘health services and information delivered or enhanced through the Internet and related technologies” (Eysenbach, 2001). Physicians exert a crucial influence on the successful diffusion and implementation of health information technology, largely because of their service-generating role in health care. Drawing on the Technology Acceptance Model—TAM (Davis, Bagozzi, & Warshaw, 1989) and its extended/adapted versions, empirical evidence has accumulated to suggest the importance of cognitive instrumental processes—especially usefulness perceptions—in accounting for physicians’ acceptance of e-health. This chapter discusses physicians’ acceptance of four e-health applications: (1) Electronic prescriptions—i.e., IT-based management and automation of drug prescriptions; (2) EHCR systems—viewed as IT systems for electronic recording and storage of patient information; (3) Patient-physician and physician-physician online communication; and (iv) Telemonitoring applications—i.e., IT systems enabling remote monitoring of patients.