Nurses’ Readiness in the Adoption of Hospital Electronic Information Management Systems in Ghana: The Application of the Structural Equation Modeling and the UTAUT Model

Abstract

Electronic health record (EHR) systems have become a basic need in most health care facilities worldwide. However, little can be said about the developing nations’ use of it. Nevertheless, Ghana is one of the very few countries in Africa to start using EHRs. Nursing is a field that has been substantially influenced by the use of hospital electronic information management systems (HEIMS). More importantly, the successful implementation of any mHealth and EHRs critically depends on user acceptance. Therefore, as nurses in Ghana work at the frontline of the health care system in the country with access to vital records about the patients, it is important to assess what motivates them to use the system. This study applied a non-experimental survey design. An electronic platform questionnaire on smartphones was used to collect data on 660 nurses. Statistically, AMOS structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to examine the research model. “Behavioral intention” (BI) to HEIMS use was significantly predicted by effort expectancy (EE) ( p <.001). Notably, EE had an effect on BI, which explains the 37% variance in the intention of nurses to use HEIMS. Likewise, use behavior (UB) of HEIMS was also significantly predicted by performance expectancy (PE) ( R2 = .25), EE ( R2 = .311), and BI ( R2 = .397), and all explained 46% of the variance in nurses’ acceptance of HEIMS. Nurses’ acceptance of HEIMS was significantly predicted by PE, EE, and BI. Based on these findings, hospital administrators should put measures in place that will boost the nurses’ confidence in using HEIMS as well as endeavor to adopt and implement a very user-friendly system.

Nurses and the acceptance of innovations in technology-intensive contexts: the need for tailored management strategies

“…The study pointed out that UTAUT model can be used to explain the acceptance of technology in healthcare technology-intensive contexts, as it is extensively been validated through time and different national contexts [ 25 , 37 ]. The results of this study point out that, for a particular kind of setting, namely the technology-intensive healthcare units, the age is a moderator for the social influence: it could be argued that social influence, or peer opinion, matters more for young nurses while older nurses seem to do not care about their peer opinion.…”

“…However, most of these studies did not put emphasis on the significance that each construct has to be contextualized in the nursing reality. Past studies illustrated the dynamics of technology acceptance in the nursing context, but they revolved around the acceptance and use of the Electronic Patient Records (EPRs) [ 23 – 25 ]. In addition to these studies which are explanatory to a circumscribed aspect, there are others which focus on the acceptance of a very specific type of technology: (i) the acceptance of Use Telemedicine Technology (eICU) and the predictors of nurses’ use of [ 26 ] that investigate how the perceived usefulness of its use in relation to the years worked in the hospital, (ii) the nurses’ Acceptance of Radiofrequency Identification Technology, where Norten [ 27 ] predicts the adherence to the protocols surrounding this new technology.…”

Extending unified theory of acceptance and use of technology to understand the acceptance of digital textbook for elementary School in Indonesia

“…The difference between government expectations and the fact in the field stems from a lack of consideration on the willingness and expectations of teachers when using digital textbooks. Owing to this, to understand this difference, the various factors affecting teachers' intention to use digital textbooks, such as attitude (Lin, 2019;Adov et al, 2020), educational belief (Liebenberg et al, 2018;Kim and Lee, 2020), confidence (Lulin et al, 2020), the perceived value of technology (Al-Rahimi et al, 2013), knowledge, social influence (Kim and Lee, 2020), habits (Hu et al, 2020), affective need (Shukla, 2021), and self-efficacy (Liebenberg et al, 2018) were examined.…”

Perception of nurses on the use of mobile phone text messaging for the management of diabetes mellitus in rural Ghana

“…Despite the tremendous potential of mobile phone SMS in facilitating effective and efficient delivery of health care, empirical evidence suggests a low adoption and use among nurses (Barello et al, 2016 ; Lulin et al, 2020 ; Peprah et al, 2020 ; Saronga et al, 2019 ). This affects the successful scale‐up of mHealth in the health sector since nurses constitute the greater number of health professionals in Ghana (Peprah et al, 2020 ).…”

“…This affects the successful scale‐up of mHealth in the health sector since nurses constitute the greater number of health professionals in Ghana (Peprah et al, 2020 ). The successful adoption and use of mobile phone SMS in nursing care strategies critically depend on nurses' acceptance (Lulin et al, 2020 ). The perception of nurses is critical in determining their acceptance (Lulin et al, 2020 ).…”