Factors Affecting the Successful Adoption of e-Health Cloud Based Health System From Healthcare Consumers’ Perspective

Cloud computing in healthcare has witnessed a major development in recent years due to its remote access capabilities among others. Studies have shown that it has attracted great attention in the field of healthcare. However, research studies show a number of healthcare consumers are yet to accept the technology, especially in developing countries due to reasons, such as the data security and the improper utilization of available information and communication technologies (ICTs) in healthcare. This paper therefore aims to identify factors affecting healthcare consumers’ attitude toward the adoption of the cloud-based health center. Questionnaires were administered to 465 respondents in four locations in Benue, Nigeria with 76.9% response rate. The analysis of the data was conducted with statistical package for social science (20.0), factor analysis, and LISREL (9.30), was used to determine the structural path model. Using the social technical design approach, we developed the cloud-based health center which will provide access to healthcare services remotely to rural communities and reduce the cost/time of medical healthcare delivery when implemented into the Nigerian healthcare system. The results show that performance expectancy (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\beta =0.31$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$t=5.80$ </tex-math></inline-formula>), effort expectancy (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\beta = 0.19$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$t= 3.90$ </tex-math></inline-formula>), social influence (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\beta = 0.21$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$t=3.95$ </tex-math></inline-formula>), facilitating conditions (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\beta = 0.22$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$t=4.82$ </tex-math></inline-formula>), data security (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\beta = 0.15$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$t=3.07$ </tex-math></inline-formula>), and information sharing (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\beta =0.11$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$t=2.53$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) had a significant impact on the behavioral intention of healthcare consumers. However, cloud-based health knowledge (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\beta = 0.09$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$t=1.49$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) was found to be statistically not significant. With these findings, healthcare policy makers must think carefully before the implementation of cloud-based health center. Otherwise, the integration will continue to create a challenge.

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