Original Research

Acceptance and adoption determinants of telemedicine in public healthcare institutions

Kokisa E. Phorah, Lovemore Motsi
Curationis | Vol 48, No 1 | a2604 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/curationis.v48i1.2604 | © 2025 Kokisa E. Phorah, Lovemore Motsi | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 15 March 2024 | Published: 16 January 2025

About the author(s)

Kokisa E. Phorah, School of Computing, College of Science, Engineering and Technology, University of South Africa, Florida, South Africa
Lovemore Motsi, School of Computing, College of Science, Engineering and Technology, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

Abstract

Background: One of the challenges facing the usage of telemedicine technology in South Africa, particularly in the North West province (NWP), is lack of user acceptance by health care professionals which prevents piloted project to produce the desired outcomes.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the influential factors for the adoption of telemedicine by health care professionals from three selected hospitals (Bophelong, Taung and Klerksdorp) in the NWP.

Method: The study adopted a case study approach and gathered data through questionnaires, which were distributed to the health care professionals of the three selected hospitals. In order to ensure that the instrument was accurate, a pilot study was carried out prior to the main investigation. Both the alpha and power values were set at 0.05 for the statistical analysis. The statistical tool used for the data analysis was SPSS v. 23.0.

Results: Attitude towards the use of telemedicine technology (ATUTT), perceived usefulness (PU) and acceptance of telemedicine technology (ATT) were considered to be the influential factors in the adoption of telemedicine technology. The association between perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU) (0.150, p = 0.034), PEOU and Attitude towards the use of telemedicine technology (ATUTT) (0.211, p = 0.002), PEOU and Acceptance of telemedicine technology (ATT) (0.245, p = 0.000), PU and (ATT) (0.212, p = 0.002), ATUTT and (ATT) (0.189, p = 0.005). However, PEOU was found to have an insignificant relationship with (0.048, p = 0.093). Hypotheses 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are supported while H2 was not supported.

Conclusion: The study aims to fill the knowledge vacuum identified, helping poor countries effectively implement telemedicine technology to modernise the health care sector. In addition, results from this study shed insight on the varied impacts of individual, technical, clinical and multidimensional social influence variables on health care providers’ decisions to use telemedicine.

Contribution: This study contributes to the body of knowledge by investigating the success factors for telemedicine technology adoption in South African public hospitals. These results have important implications for the public health care system in South Africa, both for the direction of future research and for the methods used to promote the use of telemedicine.


Keywords

information and communication technology (ICT); North West hospitals; technology acceptance model (TAM); telemedicine; user acceptance

Sustainable Development Goal

Goal 3: Good health and well-being

Metrics

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