Exploring behavioural intentions toward smart healthcare services among medical practitioners: a technology transfer perspective

Abstract

Recently, a variety of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven smart healthcare services are rapidly emerging in the medical market, such as intelligent image analysis, surgical navigation systems, and aided diagnosis. However, one of the major challenges is practitioners’ hesitation and unwillingness to employ these new technologies in medical practice. This study focuses on identifying the influential factors of adoption intention of smart healthcare services for both clinicians and non-clinicians from the perspective of technology transfer. Through collecting 484 questionnaire data from doctors in Anhui, China, we find support to show that perceived usefulness (PU), attitude, and the experience of using mHealth are key factors that influence both clinicians and non-clinician’s adoption intention. Meanwhile, it is confirmed that subjective norm has a positive effect on only clinicians’ behavioural intention (BI) while perceived risk (PR) has a negative impact on only non-clinicians’ attitude. Among all the constructs, the experience of using mHealth has the strongest positive effect on doctors’ adoption intention on smart healthcare services, a positive impact on the PU and perceived ease of use, and a negative impact on the PR. This study provides an improved understanding of doctors’ BI of smart healthcare services, and practice guidance for product development and marketing strategies.