Digital transformation of healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic: Patients’ teleconsultation acceptance and trusting beliefs

The COVID-19 pandemic boosted the digital transformation of many services, including healthcare, and access to medical care using teleconsultation has increased rapidly. Thus, a growing number of online platforms have been developed to accommodate patients’ needs. This paper examines the factors that predict the intention to use medical teleconsultation by extending the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) with the three dimensions of trusting beliefs and self-efficacy. A survey was administered to patients who had used a teleconsultation platform during the pandemic period. As one of the largest studies to date, a sample of 1233 respondents was collected and analyzed using a partial least squares approach, often mobilized in the information systems (IS) domain. Furthermore, a deep analysis using all recommended metrics was performed. The results highlight the significance of trusting beliefs, and self-efficacy in the adoption of digital healthcare services. These findings contribute to both theory and practice in COVID-19 research.

A Dual-Stage SEM-ANN Analysis to Explore Consumer Adoption of Smart Wearable Healthcare Devices

Advances in information technology have included the development of smart wearable healthcare (SWH) devices that have potential benefits for consumer health. The adoption of SWH devices is limited, however, compared with other established digital technologies. This study examines the determinants of consumers’ adoption of SWH devices. A conceptual model is proposed that incorporates health (health beliefs and health information accuracy), and technology (compatibility and functional congruence) attributes into the technology acceptance model framework. The proposed model was tested in two steps. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was performed with 473 usable responses to test the hypothesized relationships. The artificial neural network (ANN) approach was then applied to validate the outcomes of Step 1. The SEM analysis indicates that all the hypothesized relationships are supported. The ANN analysis further validates the outcomes of the SEM. The findings of this study and the dual-stage SEM-ANN methodology will have a strong impact on the existing literature regarding SWH devices.

How Self-tracking and the Quantified Self Promote Health and Well-being: Systematic Review

BACKGROUND

Self-tracking technologies are widely used in people's daily lives and health care. Academic research on self-tracking and the quantified self has also accumulated rapidly in recent years. Surprisingly, there is a paucity of research that reviews, classifies, and synthesizes the state of the art with respect to self-tracking and the quantified self.

OBJECTIVE

Our objective was to identify the state of the art of self-tracking and the quantified self in terms of health and well-being.

METHODS

We have undertaken a systematic literature review on self-tracking and the quantified self in promoting health and well-being. After a rigorous literature search, followed by inclusions, exclusions, and the application of article quality assessment protocols, 67 empirical studies qualified for the review.

RESULTS

Our results demonstrate that prior research has focused on 3 stakeholders with respect to self-tracking and the quantified self, namely end users, patients and people with illnesses, and health care professionals and caregivers. We used these stakeholder groups to cluster the research themes of the reviewed studies. We identified 11 research themes. There are 6 themes under the end-user cluster: user motivation and goal setting, usage and effects of self-tracking, continuance intention and long-term usage, management of personal data, rejection and discontinuance, and user characteristics. The patient and people with illnesses cluster contains three themes: usage experience of patients and people with illnesses, management of patient-generated data, and advantages and disadvantages in the clinical context. The health care professional and caregiver cluster contains two themes: collaboration among patients, health care professionals, and caregivers, and changes in the roles of patients and professionals. Moreover, we classified the future research suggestions given in the literature into 5 directions in terms of research designs and research topics. Finally, based on our reflections on the observations from the review, we suggest four future research directions: (1) users' cognitions and emotions related to processing and interpreting the information produced by tracking devices and apps; (2) the dark side of self-tracking (eg, its adverse psychosocial consequences); (3) self-tracking as a societal phenomenon; and (4) systemic impacts of self-tracking on health care and the actors involved.

CONCLUSIONS

This systematic literature review contributes to research and practice by assisting future research activities and providing practitioners with a concise overview of the state of the art of self-tracking and the quantified self.

Advancing the Understanding of the Role of Responsible AI in the Continued Use of IoMT in Healthcare

This paper examines the continuous intention by healthcare professionals to use the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) in combination with responsible artificial intelligence (AI). Using the theory of Diffusion of Innovation (DOI), a model was developed to determine the continuous intention to use IoMT taking into account the risks and complexity involved in using AI. Data was gathered from 276 healthcare professionals through a survey questionnaire across hospitals in Bahrain. Empirical outcomes reveal nine significant relationships amongst the constructs. The findings show that despite contradictions associated with AI, continuous intention to use behaviour can be predicted during the diffusion of IoMT. This study advances the understanding of the role of responsible AI in the continued use of IoMT in healthcare and extends DOI to address the diffusion of two innovations concurrently.

IoT as societal transformer: improving citizens' continuous usage intention in digital society through perceived public value

Purpose

The public sector use of the internet of Things (IoT) technology is an emerging field with a potential for a variety of institutional applications in the fields of information gathering and policy implementation to establish resilience for modern society. In this context, we aim to investigate the success factors which can positively influence the continuous usage intention of IoT service with the mediation effect of perceived public value.

Design/methodology/approach

A conceptual model based on the strong literature and theoretical background is tailored to provide factors for IoT services success in the public sector. A quantitative survey was conducted through 381 citizens using IoT services to validate the proposed conceptual model using structural equation modeling approach in order to examine the influence of identified constructs on the continuous usage intention.

Findings

The results highlighted that the proposed model successfully accounted for about 59% perceived variance in public value creation and 63% perceived variance in citizens' continuous usage intention. IoT services success is best dignified by the perceptions of citizens who use the services, therefore, this study identifies the positive role of digital society affinity in context of social sustainability and it climaxes that the real value of IoT in public sector comes from establishment of services on top of the service delivery and that's where the public value is going to be created.

Practical implications

The use of IoT technology in public services will fetch much benefit to the citizens as well as to the government. The study findings are significant in identifying good practices for generating public value in digital society affinity.

Originality/value

The integrated conceptual model explores the driving factors of citizens' inclination towards IoT technology in a social context. Through this study, we can analyze the role of perceived public value in enhancing the citizens' engagement with IoT services. The government policymakers and ICT managers take help from this study to designing IoT public services with making the government more responsive to citizens.

Patients' perceptions of teleconsultation during COVID-19: A cross-national study

In recent months, humanity has had to deal with a worldwide pandemic called COVID-19, which has caused the death of hundreds of thousands of people and paralyzed the global economy. Struggling to cure infected patients while continuing to care for patients with other pathologies, health authorities have faced the lack of medical staff and infrastructure. This study aimed to investigate the acceptance of teleconsultation solutions by patients, which help to avoid the spread of the disease during this pandemic period. The model was built using some constructs of the technology acceptance model UTAUT2, Personal traits, Availability, and Perceived Risks. A new scale on Contamination Avoidance was developed by the authors. The questionnaire was disseminated in several countries in Europe and Asia and a total sample of 386 respondents was collected. The results emphasize the huge impact of Performance Expectancy, the negative influence of Perceived Risk, and the positive influence of Contamination Avoidance on the adoption of teleconsultation solutions. The findings highlight the moderating effects of Age, Gender, and Country.

Motivations for the Use of IoT Solutions by Company Managers in the Digital Age: A Romanian Case

The purpose of our study is to research and identify intrinsic and extrinsic motivations but also their impact on the behavioral intentions of using Internet of Things (IoT) solutions among company managers in Romania in the future. The research method used in the quantitative study was the sample survey, using the online questionnaire as a data collection tool. The questionnaire included a formalized set of 54 questions, being specially designed to generate a new structural model starting from the Unified Theory for Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) elements. A total of 416 respondents provided complete and useful answers for this research. The results of the study showed that the endogenous factor intrinsically motivated significantly and strongly affected the intention of managers to use IoT solutions in professional activity compared to the variable of extrinsic motivation whose action remains insignificant. At the same time, the effect of the intrinsic motivation variable was mediated by the significant influence of the endogenous extrinsic motivation factor. The implications of this study are multiple for both managers and researchers. The originality of this article lies in the empirical part of the research, which, by using a quantitative method based on the questionnaire, provides important information on the impact of the motivational spectrum on the acceptance and use of IoT solutions by managers in the next period to achieve new performance, both personal and professional.