Abstract
Digitalization of health care and the availability of suitable end devices lead to an increase in the use of telehealth applications. Most research on telehealth focuses on patients or organizations (like hospitals), while the role of physicians in this context is often neglected. In case of serious and chronic diseases, they play two major roles in the use of telehealth. Firstly, they may influence the patient's decision whether to use it at all (if more than one option is available, they may also influence the patient's choice of software). Secondly, if there is a need for a physicians' participation (eg, in telecare), an adoption decision by the physician to use the system is necessary. We develop a model to understand a physician's motivations to recommend the use of telehealth software to patients and to adopt it himself. The results demonstrate that physicians recommend telehealth based on their own use intention and the perceived performance improvements in patient treatment. Further, their own use intention is dependent on the usefulness of the system for their work. Potential disadvantages like decreased patient autonomy or cost of the system use do not influence the physician's decisions.