A user based model for adoption of telemedicine by pediatricians in resource constrained environments

Abstract

Telemedicine has become an important form of Information Technology enabled delivery and decision support for health care professionals. However, the need by health care professionals to adopt and use telemedicine faces challenges including lack of full understanding of why and what motivates the user to use the applications. In the past decade, two signifi cant models - the technology acceptance model and the task technology fi t theory - have been used to predict and explain user acceptance and utilization of information technology. While each of the two models offers significant explanatory power, the combination of both has been shown to be superior to the individual models when accounting for technology acceptance. However, currently no studies are reported that use the combined models to explain the adoption and use of telemedicine. In this position paper, a conceptual model that uses the superior explanatory power of the combined TAM and TTF model is presented in an attempt to predict the user acceptance and utilization of telemedicine among pediatricians in Uganda. The study using the integrated model, is expected to provide better understanding of choices about using telemedicine among health care professionals in Uganda.