{"title":"Exploring telemedicine and organizational challenges in the healthcare system: a qualitative analysis using Grounded Theory.","authors":"Surya Bahadur Thapa, Aradhana Gandhi","doi":"10.1108/JHOM-04-2024-0157","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>Telemedicine is a context-specific intervention that implies significant procedural changes in a health organization. The objective of the study is to explore healthcare professionals' usage of and perceptions towards telemedicine technology and identify the perceived factors and related process change, influencing the effective adoption of telemedicine from an organizational perspective.</p><p><strong>Design/methodology/approach: </strong>The study includes multi-disciplinary commentaries of a purposive sample of 31 healthcare professionals, conducted through semi-structured qualitative interviews and employs Grounded Theory and Thematic Analysis techniques to analyze the data.</p><p><strong>Findings: </strong>Telemedicine is perceived as a highly beneficial digital intervention in healthcare, focusing on the delivery of effective healthcare, and promoting healthcare equity. Healthcare professionals showed their willingness to assimilate technology into clinical decision-making, resulting in better treatment outcomes, and recommended its' adoption into mainstream healthcare as a viable approach to providing remote healthcare. The key organizational issues with telemedicine adoption were system requirements, network connectivity, non-standardized medical records, and legal bottlenecks, that can be addressed by improving infrastructural convenience, optimizing service processes, imparting training, and adopting better technical measures.</p><p><strong>Originality/value: </strong>The focus is on exploring factors significant for the adoption of telemedicine technology from the perspective of multi-specialties in a health organization, rather than a specific specialty, as studied in previous scholarly work. This study contributes to the theory by proposing a conceptual framework on critical factors for telemedicine adoption, integrating the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and diffusion of innovation (DOI).</p>","PeriodicalId":47447,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Organization and Management","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Health Organization and Management","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1108/JHOM-04-2024-0157","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"HEALTH POLICY & SERVICES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Purpose: Telemedicine is a context-specific intervention that implies significant procedural changes in a health organization. The objective of the study is to explore healthcare professionals' usage of and perceptions towards telemedicine technology and identify the perceived factors and related process change, influencing the effective adoption of telemedicine from an organizational perspective.
Design/methodology/approach: The study includes multi-disciplinary commentaries of a purposive sample of 31 healthcare professionals, conducted through semi-structured qualitative interviews and employs Grounded Theory and Thematic Analysis techniques to analyze the data.
Findings: Telemedicine is perceived as a highly beneficial digital intervention in healthcare, focusing on the delivery of effective healthcare, and promoting healthcare equity. Healthcare professionals showed their willingness to assimilate technology into clinical decision-making, resulting in better treatment outcomes, and recommended its' adoption into mainstream healthcare as a viable approach to providing remote healthcare. The key organizational issues with telemedicine adoption were system requirements, network connectivity, non-standardized medical records, and legal bottlenecks, that can be addressed by improving infrastructural convenience, optimizing service processes, imparting training, and adopting better technical measures.
Originality/value: The focus is on exploring factors significant for the adoption of telemedicine technology from the perspective of multi-specialties in a health organization, rather than a specific specialty, as studied in previous scholarly work. This study contributes to the theory by proposing a conceptual framework on critical factors for telemedicine adoption, integrating the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and diffusion of innovation (DOI).
期刊介绍:
■International health and international organizations ■Organisational behaviour, governance, management and leadership ■The inter-relationship of health and public sector services ■Theories and practices of management and leadership in health and related organizations ■Emotion in health care organizations ■Management education and training ■Industrial relations and human resource theory and management. As the demands on the health care industry both polarize and intensify, effective management of financial and human resources, the restructuring of organizations and the handling of market forces are increasingly important areas for the industry to address.