Examining the use of telehealth in community nursing: identifying the factors affecting frontline staff acceptance and telehealth adoption
Open accessAbstract
Aims: To examine frontline staff acceptance of telehealth and identify barriers to and enablers of successful adoption of remote monitoring for patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Chronic Heart Failure. Background: The use of telehealth in the UK has not developed at the pace and scale anticipated by policy. Many existing studies report frontline staff acceptance as a key barrier, however data are limited and there is little evidence of the adoption of telehealth in routine practice. Design: Case studies of four community health services in England that use telehealth to monitor patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Chronic Heart Failure. Methods: Thematic analysis of qualitative interviews with 84 nursing and other frontline staff; and 21 managers and key stakeholders; data collected May 2012–June 2013. Findings: Staff attitudes ranged from resistance to enthusiasm, with varied opinions about the motives for investing in telehealth and the potential impact on nursing roles. Having reliable and flexible technology and dedicated resources for telehealth work were identified as essential in helping to overcome early barriers to acceptance, along with appropriate staff training and a partnership approach to implementation. Early successes were also important, encouraging staff to use telehealth and facilitating clinical learning and increased adoption. Conclusions: The mainstreaming of telehealth hinges on clinical ‘buy‐in’. Where barriers to successful implementation exist, clinicians can lose faith in using technology to perform tasks traditionally delivered in person. Addressing barriers is therefore crucial if clinicians are to adopt telehealth into routine practice.
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Acceptance by professional staff may be the single most important determinant of whether a new technology-supported service succeeds or fails at a local level.
“Acceptance by professional staff may be the single most important determinant of whether a new technology-supported service succeeds or fails at a local level [17,36,39,79,90,91].”
From Beyond Adoption: A New Framework for Theorizing and Evaluating Nonadoption, Abandonment, and Challenges to the Scale-Up, Spread, and Sustainability of Health and Care Technologies (2017) · cites this paper as [91]
The Background (page not provided) calls frontline staff acceptance an important factor in successful adoption of new technologies, and the Discussion (page not provided) says staff trust and confidence were essential to adopting telehealth. The paper does not rank staff acceptance as the single most important determinant, and its findings concern telehealth in community nursing rather than technology-supported services generally. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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- Authors
- Taylor, J., Coates, E., Brewster, L., Mountain, G., Wessels, B., & Hawley, M. S.
- Affiliations
- School of Health and Related Research University of Sheffield UK
- University of Sheffield (GB)
- University of Leicester (GB)
- Venue
- Journal of Advanced Nursing
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2014-07-29
- Volume
- 71
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 326-337
- ISSN
- 0309-2402 (ISSN-L)
- 1365-2648
- OpenAlex
- W2075297553
- Cited by
- 164
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 24 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 16.25
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Advanced Nursing (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Bradford Scholars (University of Bradford) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (acceptedVersion)
- ENLIGHTEN (Jurnal Bimbingan dan Konseling Islam) (acceptedVersion)
- Lancaster EPrints (Lancaster University) (submittedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Leicester Research Archive (University of Leicester) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Technology Strategy Board (2400-25148)
- Economic and Social Research Council (TS/J00 0019/1)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Telemedicine and Telehealth Implementation
- Social Sciences › Demography › Technology Use by Older Adults
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Keywords
- telemedicine, community nursing, employee acceptance, technology adoption, remote patient monitoring, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic heart failure, barriers and facilitators, employee training, nursing role
- MeSH terms
- Attitude of Health Personnel, Community Health Nursing, Diffusion of Innovation, Goals, United Kingdom, Humans, Nursing Care, Telemedicine, Biomedical Technology
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