Digital technology and intentions to adopt digital e-health practices among health-care professionals

• Date: 28 February 2024
• Pages: 36-57
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJHRH-08-2023-0073
• Published date: 28 February 2024
• Subject Matter: Health & social care,Vulnerable groups,Inequalities & diverse/minority groups,Sociology,Race & ethnic studies,Minorities,Multiculturalism,Racial identity,Work,economy & organizations
• Author: Nadia A. Abdelmegeed Abdelwahed,Mohammed A. Al Doghan,Ummi Naiemah Saraih,Bahadur Ali Soomro

Digital technology and intentions to adopt

digital e-health practices among

health-care professionals

Nadia A. Abdelmegeed Abdelwahed, Mohammed A. Al Doghan, Ummi Naiemah Saraih and

Bahadur Ali Soomro

Abstract

Purpose –In the present era, digital technology can be used responsibly to provide developed and

developing countries withhigh-quality health-care services to nations. This studyaims to explore Saudi

Arabia’sintentions to adopt digital health-care practices.

Design/methodology/approach –To be consistentwith previous studies, this study used a quantitative

methodology to collect the data from health-care professionals working in Saudi Arabia’s public and

privatehealth institutes. Consequently,this study’s findings are based on 306 validsamples.

Findings –On the one hand, the path analysisreveals that health-care professionals believe in perceptions

relating to the use of e-health and technology (PEHT) and experiences regardin gi nternet use (ERIU) and that

these have positive and significant effects on attitudes towar d the use of e-health and technology (ATEHT) and

intentions to use e-health services (ITUES). On the other han d, barriers to using e-health (BUEH) negatively

impact ATEHT and ITUES. Finally, ATEHT also has a positive and significan te ffect on ITUES.

Practical implications –This study’s findings will help Saudi Arabia’spolicymakers and the country’s

healthministry to develop policies to provide e-servicesthat health-care professionalscan use to improve

the quality of the country’s healthcare, patients’ human rights and social care. Furthermore, this study’s

findings are helpful in developing attitudes and intentions toward either e-health or digital health to

providebetter health facilities to serve Saudi Arabia’scitizens.

Originality/value –This study empiricallyconfirms among Saudi Arabia’s health-care professionals the

PEHT, ERIUand BUEH toward ATEHT and ITUES.

Keywords Digital health system, Perceptions toward use of e-health and technology,

Intentions to use e-health services, Health-care professionals

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

When it comes to offering high-quality health-care services in the present era, many

countries consider that theirtop priority is the practice of technology in health-care settings.

Digital health technology or e-health contributes greatly to cultivating the quality and

efficiency of health-care services.They provide the best ways to reinforcing existing health-

care systems (Lekalakala-Mokgele et al., 2023) because the introduction of technology is

having positive effects on health-care administration (Steinhubl et al., 2015). Based on their

own study findings, several scholars, such as Ossebaard and Van Gemert-Pijnen (2016),

McCabe and Timmins (2016) and Furusa and Coleman (2018), strongly believed that e-

health and mobile-health (m-health) are integral parts of the information and communication

technology that strengthens health-care management. Globally, e-health is a crucial

information-sharing tool for the purpose of managing and delivering health-care services.

However, the adoption of e-health may be plausible only if health-care professionals

Nadia A. Abdelmegeed

Abdelwahed and

Mohammed A. Al Doghan

are both based at the

Department of Business

Management, College of

Business Administration,

King Faisal University,

Al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia.

Ummi Naiemah Saraih is

based at the Centre of

Excellence for Social

Innovation and

Sustainability (CoESIS),

Universiti Malaysia Perlis,

Kangar, Malaysia and

Department of Business

Administration, Daffodil

International University,

Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Bahadur Ali Soomro is

based at the Centre of

Excellence for Social

Innovation and

Sustainability (CoESIS),

UniMAP, Kangar, Malaysia.

Received 28 August 2023

Revised 12 November 2023

12 February 2024

Accepted 14 February 2024

This work was supported by the

Deanship of Scientific

Research, Vice Presidency for

Graduate Studies and Scientific

Research, King Faisal

University, Saudi Arabia

(Project Grant No. 5,895).

PAGE 36 jINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN HEALTHCARE jVOL. 18 NO. 1 2025,pp. 36-57, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 2056-4902 DOI 10.1108/IJHRH-08-2023-0073

demonstrate favorable intentions and attitudes toward e-health (Olok et al.,2015). Likewise,

there exists currently within the health-care professional community an ambivalent attitude

toward the adoption of telemedicine. On the one hand, as indicated by Grassl et al. (2018)

and Leite et al. (2023), there is discernible potential among young physicians to embrace

mobile apps for various clinical aspects of patient care. However, on the other hand, Niela-

Vilen et al.’s (2020) study findings reveal reservations among health-care staff that stem

from negative experiences andchallenges in establishing trust in technology.

In the existing literature, the significant predictors of barriers to using e-heal th (BUEH) and

intentions to use e-health services (ITUES) are several factors such as trust, subjec tive norms,

perceived ease of use, performance expectancy, perceived usefulness, subjective no rms,

internet competence, perceived behavioral control, social influence , inconvenience of

computer operating skills, perceived risk and many more (Tse et al., 2008;Dash and S ahoo,

2022;Singh and Ravi, 2022;Dogra et al., 2023). However, almost all these factors have been

tested in other countries. More particularly, Saudi Arabia’s health-care p rofessionals are keenly

interested and have positive attitudes and intentionstoward the use of e-health services (AlBar

and Hoque, 2019;Alanezi, 2021). Therefore, bearing this in mind, we aimed in this study to

answer the following question:

RQ1. What are the factors that develop ITUES and attitudes toward the use of e-health

and technology (ATEHT)among Saudi Arabia’s health-care professionals?

This study’s findings will assist policymakers and planners in developing plans and

strategies to enable Saudi Arabia’s health-care professionals to access digital technology

so that they can further enhance their e-health practices and improve the country’s health-

care system. In addition to the introduction, this paper comprises the following sections.

Section 2 reviews the existing literature and identifies the gaps. Section 3 is the formulation

of this study’s hypotheses. Section 4 details this study’s methodology. Section 5 describes

the analysis. Section 6 details the discussion and the conclusion. Section 7 explains the

contribution made by this study’s findings. Finally, Section 8 explains the limitations of this

study’s findings and makes recommendations for future studies.

Literature review and gaps

Perceptions toward use of e-health and technology

E-health helps to open doors to the use of digital technology in health-care services

(Jalghoum and Khasawneh, 2016). Despite e-health’s potential advantages, it is noteworthy

that, because of its explosive expansion, there needs to be greater uniformity in the

definition and usage of words connected to e-health (Shaw et al., 2017). Although there are

specific claims that e-health improves health-care systems, there are obstacles that need to

be overcome to allow its actual implementation (Jalghoum and Khasawneh, 2016;Lapa

˜o

et al., 2017;Fagerlund et al.,2019). Health-care professionals have identified benefits and

difficulties with self-care e-health applications. Given that patients may not always have

access to the specialized tools and expertise required, the use of e-health applications can

exacerbate patients’ conditions when they are used to replace traditional in-person medical

appointments (Fagerlund et al., 2019;Granath et al., 2022). Wong et al.’s (2023) findings

indicate that e-health perceptions are connected to demographic factors such as clinical

experience, position and occupation. Moreover, there is a significant correlation between

the level of education and perceptionsof e-health.

Experiences regarding internet use

The internet provides health-care professionals with a variety of technology in

communicating with patients. Ultimately, even for emerging nations, it may soon be the

leading resource in obtaining health-care information. Users’ intentions to repeat their

VOL. 18 NO. 1 2025 jINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN HEALTHCARE jPAGE 37