The role of age and illness in the adoption of tele-health

Abstract

Abstract — This study investigates how the introduction of Tele-Health impacts the lives of the frail elderly and older adults, and how their condition influences this experience. This study investigates the underlying issues with the adoption of Tele-health by the patients. It also considers the lived experiences of the patients in reference to their disease and age. Method: A qualitative approach was adopted, which was an in-depth interview conducted in Chorleywood Health Centre, a GP practice to the North West of London. Participants consisted of older adults living with chronic diseases, mainly diabetes and COPD, in order to gain a complex understanding of their reaction towards Tele-Health, as they are usually the target market for such tools. 30 participants took part in the study and were provided with a Tele-health service tool. The data were then thematically analysed using the thematic analysis method and transcribed using NVIVO10. Four databases were searched to find relevant literature namely: ScienceDirect, PubMed Central, Scopus and Medline. Research Design: The study adopted Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to collect and analyse data. In IPA, the researcher transcends or suspends past knowledge and experience to understand a phenomenon at a deeper level (Creswell, 2007). It is an approach, which seeks to explore, describe, and analyse the meaning of individual lived experience: “how they perceive it, describe it, feel about it, judge it, remember it, make sense of it, and talk about it with others” (with a sense of ‘newness’ or ‘rawness’ to obtain descriptive and rich data). Results: Nine main themes emerged as influences on their acceptance and adoption of Tele-health: Attitude to aging and Illness, Coping Strategy, Relationship and Support, Patient-Doctor Interaction, Incorporating Patients, Self-Efficacy, Personality, Personal Meaning and Knowledge. The themes were also reviewed at the end of the study to validate the results. Moreover the themes were observed to be considered explicitly by the patients before accepting and adopting the Tele Health service. A new framework, the Patient Technology Adoption Model (PTAM) is derived from the themes. The PTAM indicates the relationship between the factors and may be used to understand the ways in which the patients made their decision to accept the technology or not. Conclusion: This study encourages healthcare providers and decision makers who are responsible for the innovation and implementation of services to make all efforts to understand the consumer and consider conditions that might influence their decisions to accept, adopt or reject health technologies. The study proposes a new framework (PTAM) that highlights that a patient-centred approach should be adopted by healthcare providers and decision makers, as it would facilitate more successes in the health services provided by the NHS.