A holistic framework for understanding acceptance of Remote Patient Management (RPM) systems by non-professional users

The successful integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in healthcare facilitates the use of the sophisticated medical equipment and computer applications by medical practitioners. If earlier medical systems were mainly used by the health professionals (e.g. medical staff or nurses), nowadays with the appearance of Internet health systems are becoming available to the broader user groups, particularly patients and their families. eHealth has become an active research and development area within healthcare industry. Another important tendency in the development of ICT for health is a shift from “hospital-centered” to “person-centered” health systems which can enable maintaining and improving the quality of care without exploding costs. While technological side has been intensively developed within several research areas, the adoption of eHealth from a user's perspective has gained too less research attention. Our current understanding of factors that affect acceptance of ICT-based eHealth systems by prospective non-professional users (patients) is still in its infancy. In information systems research the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Usage of Technology (UTAUT) has been applied by many researchers. There are already some uses of it in the eHealth area. In this paper we consider the UTAUT-model and its eHealth applications and suggest a holistic framework for further studies of user acceptance in Remote Patient Management (RPM).