The use of e-training in healthcare has experienced considerable growth. The results of this study provide insights regarding the importance of technology compatibility attributes to behavioral intentions to continue the use of e-training by healthcare professionals. A model based on the technology acceptance literature has been used. The model adds the construct of healthcare practice compatibility to the Technology Acceptance Model as a predictor of behavioral intention to continued use of e-training by healthcare professionals. Using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), findings suggest that perceived practice compatibility, perceived workflow compatibility, and perceived task compatibility in e-training are essential to healthcare professionals' intent to continue use of e-training. The parsimonious model in this study is a more predictive model than the basic TAM model in explaining users' intentions to continue use of e-training.
TopIntroduction
Though E-training has played a significant role in healthcare professionals’ training and development, there is extensive evidence of numerous cases of underuse, resistance, workarounds, overrides, sabotage, and even abandonment of e-training (Bhattacherjee, 2001; Bhattachrjee & Hikmet, 2007; Holden & Karsh, 2010; Pai & Huang, 2011; Kamalzadeh Takhti, Abdul Rahman, & Abedini, 2013). Prior research studies have provided insight into participation in e-training; however, limited research exists on intention for continued use of e-training by healthcare professionals.
The ability to identify, predict, and manage employee acceptance and continued use of technology facilitates implementation efforts. The continued use of technology by users is essential to the success of healthcare IT (Schaper & Pervan, 2007a). Increased interest in the use of e-training by healthcare professionals has elevated the importance of theories that predict and explain e-training acceptance and use.
A fundamental approach to e-training in the workplace is practice compatibility: The concept that practice compatibility plays a significant role as a determinant of behavioral intention to continued use of e-training and that healthcare professionals need e-training technology that is perceived as being both useful and easy to use. Despite the large volume of research in technology acceptance and use, very little research has been conducted in the healthcare industry regarding factors specific to predicting and explaining healthcare professionals’ continued use of e-training, which are thus not well understood. In this study, healthcare professionals in the U.S.A. were surveyed about their perceptions on the use of e-training for continuing education and professional development for the purpose of discerning how e-training technology might be revised to increase usage and user acceptance.