Socio-Technological Factors Affecting User's Adoption of eHealth Functionalities: A Case Study of China and Ukraine eHealth Systems

Abstract

Recent studies have shown the rapid adoption of digital health software applications worldwide. However, researchers are yet to fully understand users' rationale of eHealth systems. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to analyze user attitudes to eHealth applications in China and eHealth system in Ukraine, and then provide insights and suggestions to the development of an eHealth application (eZdorovya) for health information services in general. This study includes a survey conducted by Chinese and Ukrainian users, after which thorough data analyses were conducted. Based on the technology acceptance model (TAM), this research framework explores the influence of socio-technical factors affecting user's adoption of eHealth functionalities. Serial Multiple Mediator Model 6 (SMMM6) and a deep neural network-based approach were used to analyze the eHealth software users' rationale with the sample size of survey 236 end-users from China and 124 end-users from Ukraine. The key findings from the data analysis are: 1) if the software application is covering an important service function and is interesting to use, Chinese users will continue using it, 2) given an eHealth software with important or interesting function, it is inconclusive whether Ukrainian users will switch to use the application, and 3) deep neural network shows highly accurate prediction results and was given applied suggestions for Chinese and Ukrainian providers in the case of improving eHealth systems based on a raw prediction.