Clinician Acceptance is the Key Factor for Sustainable Telehealth Services
Abstract
Telehealth, the delivery of health care services at a distance using information and communications technology, has been slow to be adopted and difficult to sustain. Researchers developing theories concerning the introduction of complex change into health care usually take a multifactorial approach; we intentionally sought a single point of intervention that would have maximum impact on implementation. We conducted a qualitative interview study of 36 Australian telehealth services, sampled for maximum variation, and used grounded theory methods to develop a model from which we chose the most important factor affecting the success of telehealth. We propose that clinician acceptance explains much of the variation in the uptake, expansion, and sustainability of Australian telehealth services, and that clinician acceptance could, in most circumstances, overcome low demand, technology problems, workforce pressure, and lack of resourcing. We conclude that our model offers practical advice to those seeking to implement change with limited resources.
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Clinician acceptance is the key factor for making a successful transition to sustainable telehealth operations.
“and that clinician acceptance is the key factor for making a successful transition to sustainable operations [14]”
From Transitioning a home telehealth project into a sustainable, large-scale service: a qualitative study (2016) · cites this paper as [14]
Clinician acceptance was the key factor in the prior model for achieving sustainability of telehealth services.
“Clinician acceptance was the key factor in the prior model for achieving sustainability of telehealth services, and was regarded by participants as the third important influence on leadership support.”
From Transitioning a home telehealth project into a sustainable, large-scale service: a qualitative study (2016) · cites this paper as [14]
This research adds leadership support as the next key factor for wider uptake of telehealth services.
“As found in previous research [14], clinician acceptance continued to be an important enabler for the sustainability of telehealth services, but this research adds leadership support as the next key factor for wider uptake.”
From Transitioning a home telehealth project into a sustainable, large-scale service: a qualitative study (2016) · cites this paper as [14]
Disillusion can open the way to other factors opposing acceptance, such as perceived stigma, leading to failure of the intervention.
“Disillusion might then open the way to other factors opposing acceptance, such as perceived stigma, thus leading to the failure of the intervention [51, 52].”
From Acceptance and use of innovative assistive technologies among people with cognitive impairment and their caregivers: a systematic review (2019) · cites this paper as [51]
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- Authors
- Wade, V. A., Eliott, J. A., & Hiller, J. E.
- Affiliations
- The University of Adelaide (AU)
- Australian Catholic University (AU)
- Venue
- Qualitative Health Research
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2014-03-31
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 682-694
- ISSN
- 1049-7323 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-7557
- OpenAlex
- W2121868697
- Semantic Scholar
- b2f22ede44f5b9bef2612138b70e969b999aa42e
- Cited by
- 410
- References
- 19
- Citations by year
- 2026: 19 · 2025: 34 · 2024: 40 · 2023: 45 · 2022: 67 · 2021: 69 · 2020: 39 · 2019: 25 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 20 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 3
- FWCI
- 18.24
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Qualitative Health Research (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Bank (Australian Catholic University) (submittedVersion)
- Adelaide Research & Scholarship (AR&S) (University of Adelaide) (submittedVersion)
- Swinburne figshare (Swinburne University of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Australian Government
- University of Adelaide
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Telemedicine and Telehealth Implementation
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Policy Implementation Science
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Electronic Health Records Systems
- Keywords
- telemedicine, clinician acceptance, healthcare implementation, technology adoption
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Attitude of Health Personnel, Australia, Cooperative Behavior, Diffusion of Innovation, Female, Humans, Interview, Psychological, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Middle Aged, Patient Care Team, Telemedicine, Remote Consultation, Interdisciplinary Communication, Grounded Theory
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