Business Management, School of Industrial Engineering, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Spain.
Health Care Manage Rev. 2013 Jan-Mar;38(1):61-70. doi: 10.1097/HMR.0b013e31824b1c6b.
Public health institutions are making a great effort to develop patient-targeted online services in an attempt to enhance their effectiveness and reduce expenses. However, if patients do not use those services regularly, public health institutions will have wasted their limited resources. Hence, patients' electronic loyalty (e-loyalty) is essential for the success of online health care services.
In this research, an extended Technology Acceptance Model was developed to test e-loyalty intent toward online health care services offered by public health institutions.
Data from a survey of 256 users of online health care services provided by the public sanitary system of a region in Spain were analyzed. The research model was tested by using the structural equation modeling approach.
The results obtained suggest that the core constructs of the Technology Acceptance Model (perceived usefulness, ease of use, and attitude) significantly affected users' behavioral intentions (i.e., e-loyalty intent), with perceived usefulness being the most decisive antecedent of affective variables (i.e., attitude and satisfaction). This study also reveals a general support for patient satisfaction as a determinant of e-loyalty intent in online health care services.
Policy makers should focus on striving to get the highest positive attitude in users by enhancing easiness of use and, mainly, perceived usefulness. Because through satisfaction of patients, public hospitals will enlarge their patient e-loyalty intent, health care providers must always work at obtaining satisfied users and to encourage them to continue using the online services.
公共卫生机构正在努力开发针对患者的在线服务，以提高其效率并降低成本。然而，如果患者没有定期使用这些服务，公共卫生机构将浪费其有限的资源。因此，患者的电子忠诚度（e-loyalty）对于在线医疗服务的成功至关重要。
本研究旨在扩展技术接受模型，以检验公共卫生机构提供的在线医疗服务的 e-loyalty 意向。
对来自西班牙某地区公共卫生系统在线医疗服务的 256 名用户的调查数据进行了分析。使用结构方程模型方法对研究模型进行了检验。
研究结果表明，技术接受模型的核心构念（感知有用性、易用性和态度）显著影响了用户的行为意向（即 e-loyalty 意向），其中感知有用性是影响情感变量（即态度和满意度）的最决定性因素。本研究还普遍支持患者满意度作为在线医疗服务中 e-loyalty 意向的决定因素。
政策制定者应专注于通过增强易用性和主要是感知有用性来努力在用户中获得最高的积极态度。因为通过满足患者，公立医院将扩大其患者的 e-loyalty 意向，医疗服务提供者必须始终努力获得满意的用户，并鼓励他们继续使用在线服务。
