Can 3D Virtual Worlds Address Healthcare Issues? Development, Delivery, Efficacy and Motivations to Use

The proposed work, which comprises of three essays, is aimed at developing and testing the efficacy of delivering healthcare services through virtual worlds (with focus on Second Life ® ). The first essay explores the unique aspects of system (presence) development in virtual worlds (VWs). In our study, multiple cases have been analyzed to investigate the process of systems development in SL projects and contrasted with existing information system development approaches. The second essay develops and empirically examines the efficacy of delivering healthcare services in the 3D virtual world (specifically in Second Life ®), and identify the factors (technological, process and user) that could contribute to the success or failure of such a delivery mechanism The third essay extends the proposed framework (in essay 2) by examining the role of hedonic motivations in adoption of healthcare services in the 3D VW s (specifically in Second Life ®). Contributions to education and research are discussed.

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