Investigating patients' intention to continue using teleconsultation to anticipate postcrisis momentum: Survey study

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 crisis has drastically changed care delivery with teleconsultation platforms experiencing substantial spikes in demand, helping patients and care providers avoid infections and maintain health care services. Beyond the current pandemic, teleconsultation is considered a significant opportunity to address persistent health system challenges, including accessibility, continuity, and cost of care, while ensuring quality. Objective: This study aims at identifying the determinants of patients' intention to continue using a teleconsultation platform. It extends prior research on information technology use continuance intention and teleconsultation services. Methods: Data was collected in November 2018 and May 2019 with Canadian patients who had access to a teleconsultation platform. Measures included patients' intention to continue their use; teleconsultation usefulness; teleconsultation quality; patients' trust toward the digital platform, its provider. and health care professionals; and confirmation of patients' expectations toward teleconsultation. We used structural equation modeling employing the partial least squares component-based technique to test our research model and hypotheses. Results: We analyzed a sample of 178 participants who had used teleconsultation services. Our findings revealed that confirmation of expectations had the greatest influence on continuance intention (total effects=0.722; P