Systems Approach in Telemedicine Adoption During and After COVID-19: Roles, Factors, and Challenges

Abstract

Telemedicine applications have received increasing attention with significant effects on the traditional mechanism of health care services, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper investigates the values and barriers influencing the adoption and acceptance of telemedicine services during COVID-19 by a systems approach combined with a quantitative analysis. We developed a casual loop diagram (CLD) showing the interactions between the factors, including technology, policymaking, patient, and care provider in the context of COVID-19. The feedback loops were thematically synthesized from the literature to demonstrate the attitude of adopting telemedicine services while considering the connections and causality of different factors. To further quantify how COVID-19 impacted the adoption of telemedicine, a National Electronic Health Record Survey (NEHRS) 2021 was utilized to test the usage, barrier, and trend of telemedicine. The results indicate that factors including ease of use, utilization, available tools, facilitating conditions, technology access, and quality of care influence the adoption and acceptance of telemedicine. The results also suggest that the challenges and opportunities associated with telemedicine adoption and use should be explored holistically from multiple perspectives and shed light on various stakeholders at different levels.