An Assessment of the COVID-19 Pandemic’s Impact on US Physicians’ Acceptance of Telemedicine: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Prior to the COVID-19, various issues in ethics, laws, regulations and security risks limited physicians in their ability to deliver medical care via telemedicine. However, in 2020, telemedicine quickly became mainstream when the US government issued a waiver granting the use of telemedicine to reduce COVID-19 transmission. This study examined the US physicians’ acceptance of telemedicine after its sudden wide-scale implementation. The authors developed a survey based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology to assess the US physicians’ intentions and attitudes toward the use of telemedicine in the delivery of medical care. This survey was distributed between March and June in 2021 across several voluntary online physician groups. The survey was validated using factor analysis. The 110 participants who completed this study were all active physicians practising telemedicine in the USA. The majority of the participants were female (93%), between 34 and 59 years of age (93%), had at least 10 years of medical experience (84%) and practised in a city (92%). The behavioural intention to use telemedicine was influenced by performance expectancy ( β = 0.34, p<.001), social influence ( β = 0.34, p<.001), facilitating conditions ( β = 0.14, p<.05) and attitude towards telemedicine use ( β = 0.36, p<.001). Attitude towards telemedicine use was influenced by performance expectancy ( β = 0.60, p<.001), effort expectancy ( β = 0.16, p<.05) and social influence ( β = 0.16, p<.05). In addition, telemedicine experience moderated the influence of performance expectancy on behavioural intention negatively ( β =−0.39, p<.001) and moderated the influence of facilitating conditions on behavioural intention positively( β = 0.27, p<.001). This study found that the physicians’ performance expectancy of and attitude towards telemedicine use were significant predictors of physicians’ acceptance. Social influence from colleagues and administrators also played an essential role in impacting physicians’ acceptance of telemedicine. Physicians’ effort expectancy merely affected their attitude towards telemedicine use. Facilitating conditions—such as the inability to perform physical exams, labs, etc.—only influenced the physicians’ intention to use telemedicine. Finally, the survey data suggested that as physicians gained telemedicine experience, their performance expectancy predicted lower behavioural intention than counterparts with less experience.