Empirical Study of Telemedicine Readiness in the Healthcare Sector in Developing Countries

Abstract

Healthcare providers have reasons to consider telemedicine technologies when determining the best practices for service provision. The use of such technologies in developing countries is still limited, and it is important to examine the readiness to telemedicine solutions at an organisational level in developing countries such as Libya in order to provide healthcare services. Therefore, a model was proposed and validated to assess telemedicine readiness in Libya from the healthcare providers' perspective. Healthcare providers' operational capability and telemedicine outcome expectations were also investigated. The results highlight that the level of telemedicine readiness could be influenced by various health-specific organisational factors including organisational capabilities and resources. The findings of this research are that various organisational factors have an impact on telemedicine readiness and thus on the implementation of such technology including healthcare providers' human resources, IT infrastructure, perceived ease of use, and prospective healthcare providers.