Health professionals’ readiness and its associated factors to implement Telemedicine system at private hospitals in Amhara region, Ethiopia 2021
Authors: Wubante Sisay Maru , Nigatu Araya Mesfin , Jemere Adamu Takele 
Published: September 2022

Introduction

In resource-limited settings incorporating the Telemedicine system into the healthcare system enhances exchanging valid health information for practicing evidence-based medicine for the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases. Despite its great importance, the adoption of telemedicine in low-income country settings, like Ethiopia, was lagging and increasingly failed. Assessing the readiness of health professionals before the actual adoption of telemedicine is considered the prominent solution to tackle the problem. However, little is known about Health professionals’ telemedicine readiness in this study setting.

Objective

Accordingly, this study aimed to assess health professionals’ readiness and its associated factors to implement a Telemedicine system at private hospitals in North West, Ethiopia.

Materials and methods

An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted from March 3 to April 7, 2021. A total of 423 health professionals working in private hospitals were selected using a simple random sampling technique. Multi-variable logistic regression was fitted to identify determinant factors of health professional readiness after the other covariates were controlled.

Result

In this study the overall readiness of telemedicine adoption was 65.4% (n = 268) [95% CI:60.1–69.8]. Knowledge (AOR = 2.5;95% CI: [1.4, 4.6]), Attitude (AOR = 3.2;95% CI: [1.6, 6.2]), computer literacy (AOR = 2.2; 95% CI: [1.3, 3.9]), computer training (AOR = 2.1;95% CI: [1.1, 4.1]), Computer skill (AOR = 1.9;95% CI: [1.1, 3.4]), computer access at office (AOR = 2.1;95% CI: [1.1, 3.7]), Internet access at office (AOR = 2.8; 95% CI: [1.6, 5.1]), Own personal computer (AOR = 3.0; 95% CI: [1.5, 5.9]) and work experience (AOR = 3.1; 95% CI: [1.4, 6.7]) were significantly associated with the overall health professionals readiness for the adoption of telemedicine using a cut point of p-value lessthan 0.05.

Conclusion and recommendation

Around two-thirds of the respondents had a good level of overall readiness for the adoption of telemedicine. The finding implied that less effort is required to improve readiness before the implementation of telemedicine. This findings implied that respondents who had good knowledge and a favorable attitude toward telemedicine were more ready for such technology. Capacity building is needed Enhance computer literacy, and computer skills building their confidence to rise ready for such technology. Building their capacity through training, building good internet connection, and availability of computers, where the necessary measures to improve Telemedicine readiness in this setting. Additionally, further studies are recommended to encompass all types of telemedicine readiness such as organizational readiness, technology readiness, societal readiness, and so on. Additionally, exploring the healthcare provider opinion with qualitative study and extending the proposed study to other implementation settings are recommended to be addressed in future works. The study has a positive impact on the successful implementation and use of telemedicine throughout hospitals at countries level by providing pertinent information about health professionals’ preparedness status. Therefore, implementing telemedicine will have a significant contribution to the health system performance improvement in terms of providing quality care, accessibility to health facilities, reduction of costs, and creating a platform for communication between health professionals across different health institutions for providing quality patient care.