The Role of Technology Acceptance in Healthcare to Mitigate COVID-19 Outbreak

Abstract

AbstractThe recent decade has included huge achievements in the development for information technologies in healthcare. Now, these technologies can be employed as part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Information technologies in healthcare are crucial to store, manage and exchange the clinical data. On the other hand, the success or failure of a specific technology relies on the acceptance to use that technology. There is a need to assess the user’s technology acceptance prior to the development or improvements for that technology. The study objective is to systematically review the studies that empirically had evaluated the acceptance of technology in healthcare through the technology acceptance model (TAM), its extensions and integrated models based on it. Also, the study will highlight the various studied technologies in healthcare arena, and how these technologies can be utilized to provide the health services, as a respond to the on-going pandemic. PRISMA guidelines were used to perform the review; and the search process has been completed using six digital libraries: Google Scholar, PubMed, IEEE Xplore, Springer Link, ACM, and Science Direct. Out of 1768 studies, a total of 99 empirical studies were found to be eligible and included in this study. A thorough statistical analysis was achieved, to understand the situation of technology acceptance as in the recent decade. The analysis included the key factors, as they were extensively utilized to clarify the technology acceptance, along with the key confirmed hypotheses to build robust and valid technology acceptance models in healthcare. It was found that electronic records, tele-medicine and mobile health solutions have attracted the most of researchers in the last ten years. Where the acceptance of those solutions was explored, through various user types and settings, within different countries particularly Taiwan and the United States; who are leading this research domain.KeywordsCOVID-19Technology acceptance modelHealthcareSystematic reviewPRISMA