Patients’ Acceptance towards a Web-Based Personal Health Record System: An Empirical Study in Taiwan

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Chung-Feng Liu²  Yung-Chieh Tsai¹ 

[1] Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Chi-Mei Medical Center, No. 901, Zhonghua Rd., Yongkang Dist., Tainan 710, Taiwan; E-Mail:;Department of Information Management, Chia Nan University of Pharmacy and Science, No. 60, Sec.1, Erh-Jen Rd., Jen-Te Dist., Tainan 717, Taiwan; E-Mail:

关键词: patients;    personal health records;    technology acceptance model;    physician-patient relationship;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijerph10105191

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The health care sector has become increasingly interested in developing personal health record (PHR) systems as an Internet-based telehealthcare implementation to improve the quality and decrease the cost of care. However, the factors that influence patients’ intention to use PHR systems remain unclear. Based on physicians’ therapeutic expertise, we implemented a web-based infertile PHR system and proposed an extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) that integrates the physician-patient relationship (PPR) construct into TAM’s original perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU) constructs to explore which factors will influence the behavioral intentions (BI) of infertile patients to use the PHR. From ninety participants from a medical center, 50 valid responses to a self-rating questionnaire were collected, yielding a response rate of 55.56%. The partial least squares (PLS) technique was used to assess the causal relationships that were hypothesized in the extended model. The results indicate that infertile patients expressed a moderately high intention to use the PHR system. The PPR and PU of patients had significant effects on their BI to use PHR, whereas the PEOU indirectly affected the patients’ BI through the PU. This investigation confirms that PPR can have a critical role in shaping patients’ perceptions of the use of healthcare information technologies. Hence, we suggest that hospitals should promote the potential usefulness of PHR and improve the quality of the physician-patient relationship to increase patients’ intention of using PHR.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.