Do German physicians want electronic health services?

Germany is introducing a nation-wide health telematics infrastructure that enables various electronic health services (EHS). Little is known about the burdens and drivers for potential adoption of these innovations. Based on a quantitative study among German physicians participating in pilot test regions for health telematics, this paper clusters potential adopters and rejecters of EHS, based on their usage intention as determined with the UTAUT model. The study furthermore depicts opinions, attitudes, as well as equipment of physicians in ambulatory care to find similarities in terms of IT diffusion, process and security standardization, patient involvement, communication, documentation and general working patterns. The clustering shows that ?Supporters? and ?Rejecters? of EHS differ significantly in many aspects investigated. Based on these empirical findings, implications for design and introduction of e-health services can be derived, ranging from a different way of approaching physicians in ambulatory care to incentive structures for EHS usage.     «

Germany is introducing a nation-wide health telematics infrastructure that enables various electronic health services (EHS). Little is known about the burdens and drivers for potential adoption of these innovations. Based on a quantitative study among German physicians participating in pilot test regions for health telematics, this paper clusters potential adopters and rejecters of EHS, based on their usage intention as determined with the UTAUT model. The study furthermore depicts opinions, att...     »