Investigation of factors affecting healthcare organization's adoption of telemedicine technology

Abstract

Recent advances in information and biomedicine technology have significantly increased the technical feasibility, clinical viability and economic affordability of telemedicine-assisted service collaboration and delivery. Healthcare organizations around the world have become increasingly interested in incorporating this technology into existing services or extended patient markets. The ultimate success of telemedicine in an adopting organization requires the organization's proper addressing both technological and managerial challenges. Based on Tornatzky and Fleischer's framework, we developed and empirically evaluated a research model for healthcare organizations' adoption of telemedicine technology, using a survey study that involved public healthcare organizations in Hong Kong. Results of our exploratory study suggested that the research model exhibited reasonable significance and classification accuracy and that collective attitude of medical staff and perceived service risks were the two most significant factors in organizational adoption of telemedicine technology. Furthermore, several implications for telemedicine management emerged from our study and are discussed as well.