Electronic healthcare: a study of people's readiness and attitude toward performing self‐diagnosis

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the introduction of self‐service technology (SST) in health diagnosis as a means to reduce costs and improve quality in the health care sector – at the same time.Design/methodology/approach – A survey with an internet‐based medical self‐diagnosis application as the focal technology is conducted. The research hypotheses are tested by using a scenario and questionnaire approach, in which respondents prior to responding read a scenario.Findings – To test the hypotheses, structural equation modeling using LISREL was performed. It was found that the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) for users, described according to the Technology Readiness Index (TRI) as pioneers, has a very good ability to predict future behavioral intent. TAM has an excellent capability to predict future behavioral intent of this new application in this new context, i.e. health care services.Research limitations/implications – The paper only tests TAM for a given population described as pion...