Analysis of Factors Influencing Clinical Nurses’ Usage Behavior of F5G All-Optical Network Medical Information System for Smart Hospitals

Objective In this study, we investigated the usage behaviors of clinical nurses for an all-optical network (AON)-based medical information system and the factors influencing these behaviors. The purpose was to provide theoretical support for the wide applications of the system. Methods A whole-group sampling method was adopted. The general information questionnaire and the UTAUT scale were used to survey all nurses from September to October 2022 at the internal medicine building of Puren Hospital (Wuhan University of Science and Technology, WUST), where AONs, a new network prototype for the fifth-generation fixed network (F5G), has been embedded. Results 219 clinical nurses scored (11.97±1.70) on the usage behavior entries, with a mean entry score of (3.99±0.57). Scores for usage behaviors were positively correlated with five factors, namely performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), facilitating conditions (FC), and intention to use, or behavioral intention (BI) (r=0.635,0.760,0.803, 0.826, and 0.802, respectively; P<0.01). The results of the multiple linear regression analysis showed that these five factors greatly affected the usage behaviors of clinical nurses for the system (P< 0.05), explaining 71.9% of the total variance. Conclusion Hospital managers and mid-level leaders are advised to exercise their influence to train clinical nurses and encourage them to use new technologies, thereby promoting the development of information technologies for smart hospitals.