Impact of perceived ease of use, organizational support mechanism, and industry competitive pressure on physicians' use of liver cancer screening technology in medical alliances.

BACKGROUND

Liver cancer is one of the malignant tumors worldwide, while the prevention and control situation is grim at present, and the diffusion of its early screening technology still faces some challenges. This study aims to investigate the influencing mechanism of perceived ease of use, organizational support mechanism, and industry competitive pressure on hepatic early screening technologies use by physicians, so as to promote the wider use of corresponding technologies.

METHODS

Under the theoretical guidance of technology-organization-environment framework and mindsponge theory, this study took hepatic contrast-enhanced ultrasound as an example, and conducted a cross-sectional questionnaire by randomly selecting physicians from Fujian and Jiangxi provinces in China with a high and low incidence of liver cancer, respectively. Structural equation modeling was used to determine the correlation among perceived ease of use, organizational support mechanism, and industry competitive pressure, as well as their impact on the physicians' behavior toward contrast-enhanced ultrasound use.

RESULTS

The hypothesis model fits well with the data (/df = 1.863, GFI = 0.937, AGFI = 0.908, RMSEA = 0.054, NFI = 0.959, IFI = 0.980, CFI = 0.980). Under technology-organization-environment framework, the perceived ease of use ( = 0.171,  < 0.05), organizational support mechanism ( = 0.423,  < 0.01), industry competitive pressure ( = 0.159,  < 0.05) significantly influenced physicians' use of hepatic contrast-enhanced ultrasound. Besides, perceived ease of use and organizational support mechanism ( = 0.216,  < 0.01), perceived ease of use and industry competitive pressure ( = 0.671, p < 0.01), organizational support mechanism and industry competitive pressure ( = 0.330,  < 0.01) were all associated significantly.

CONCLUSION

From the lens of information processing (mindsponge theory) and technology-organization-environment framework, this study clarified the social and psychological influencing mechanism of perceived ease of use, organizational support mechanism, and industry competitive pressure on physicians' use of hepatic contrast-enhanced ultrasound. The results will directly propose recommendations for expanding hepatic contrast-enhanced ultrasound utilization and indirectly promoting other appropriate and effective health technologies diffusion within the integrated health system.