The Association Between Willingness of Frontline Care Providers’ to Adaptively Use Telehealth Technology and Virtual Service Performance in Provider-to-Provider Communication: Quantitative Study

Abstract

Background Telehealth technology can create a disruptive communication environment for frontline care providers who mediate virtual communication with specialists in electronic consultations. As providers are dealing with various technology features when communicating with specialists, their flexible attitude and behaviors to use various telehealth-related technology features can change the outcome of virtual care service. Objective The objective of this study is to examine frontline care providers’ technology adaptation behaviors in the electronic consultation context. From the perspective of frontline care providers, we reapply and retest a theoretical model, reflecting a mechanism through which technology users’ personal characteristics and technology adaptation behavior enhance virtual service performance, which is an important performance enabler in this online meeting context. In provider-to-provider communication, particularly, we explore the association among providers’ information technology (IT)–related personal characteristics, adaptive telehealth technology use, and virtual service performance. Methods An online survey was administered to collect individual providers’ personal traits, IT adaptation, and perception on virtual service performance. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling was used to estimate our predictive model of personal traits—IT adaptation, such as exploitative use (use the telehealth technology in a standard way), and exploratory use (use the telehealth technology as innovative way)—and virtual service performance. Results We collected 147 responses from graduate nursing students who were training to be nurse practitioners in their master’s program, resulting in 121 valid responses from the cross-section online survey. Our theoretical model explained 60.0% of the variance in exploitative use of telehealth technology, 44% of the variance in exploratory use of telehealth technology, and 66% of the variance in virtual service performance. We found that exploitative IT use is an important driver to increase virtual service performance (β=0.762, P<.001), and personal characteristics such as habit are positively associated with both exploitative (β=0.293, P=.008) and exploratory use behaviors (β=0.414, P=.006), while computer self-efficacy is positively associated with exploitative use of telehealth technology (β=0.311, P=.047). Conclusions This study discusses the unique role of frontline care providers in a virtual care service context and highlights the importance of their telehealth adaptation behavior in provider-to-provider communication. We showed that providers perceive that telehealth technologies should function as intended, otherwise it may create frustration or avoidance of the telehealth technology. Moreover, providers’ habitual use of various technologies in daily lives also motivates them to adaptively use telehealth technology for improving virtual care service. Understanding providers’ technology habit and adaptation can inform health care policy and further provide a better view of the design of telehealth technology for online communication.

Willingness to use telemedicine during COVID-19 among health professionals in a low income country

“…One standard deviation additional change in Patient-physician relationship increases willingness to use telemedicine by 0.91 standard deviations. The study conducted in Saudi Arabia [ 27 ], USA [ 28 ] and Israel [ 29 ] were consistent with the result of this study. The possible explanations for these findings were improved trust between health care professionals and patients, increased quality of communication between health care professionals and patients will help to increase the extent of willingness to use telemedicine.…”

Utility, barriers and facilitators to the use of connected health to support families impacted by paediatric cancer: a qualitative analysis

“…Shared access to information across HCPs and parents may decrease parental responsibility, while simplifying information sharing may enable enhanced communication between parents and HCPs. This mirrors previous research suggesting the potential for CH to support communication in paediatric cancer [ 13 ], as well as communication between primary and secondary care [ 9 ] and sharing of clinical information [ 10 ]. However, this need for increased access to health information may be facilitated by more simple CH approaches, such as the use of EHRs, which are unavailable in Ireland.…”

“…More specifically, CH is often used as an umbrella term to describe sensor technology, mHealth and eHealth, amongst others [ 5 , 6 ]. Great potential exists for CH in supporting those with serious illness [ 7 ], through reducing bottlenecks [ 8 ], facilitating communication between primary and secondary care [ 9 ], and aiding transfer of clinical information [ 10 ] through allowing for efficient collection, analysis and transfer of data through technology. While limited analysis of CH interventions within paediatric cancer has been conducted [ 11 ], such technologies offer particular benefits for this population through aiding understanding [ 12 ] and improving parent–HCP communication [ 13 ] by easing access to health information, reducing social isolation through facilitating communication with peers [ 12 ], and enhancing healthcare management through ease of access to health records [ 14 ].…”

Association of Physician Characteristics With Early Adoption of Virtual Health Care

“…We had hypothesized that physicians' generational demographic cohort would be an important factor associated with the likelihood of early adoption. Telehealth shares similarities with other technologies on smartphones, tablets, and computers, and preexisting experience and confidence may have influenced attitudes and adoption, 16 and physicians' experience with technology has previously been identified as a barrier. 17 Yet the only generational association that we noted was that the small number of physicians in our system from the Silent Generation were less likely to be early adopters.…”