Healthcare professionals’ use of health clouds: Integrating technology acceptance and status quo bias perspectives

• The health cloud has played a central role in patient information management.
• Healthcare professionals play a key role in the acceptance of health cloud.
• The integrated model is based on dual factor theory model.
• Subjective norms were the strongest factor in terms of intention to use.
• The results indicated that inertia was the strongest factor in resistance to use.

PurposeCloud computing technology has recently been seen as an important milestone in medical informatics development. Despite its great potential, there are gaps in our understanding of how users evaluate change in relation to the health cloud and how they decide to resist it. Integrating technology acceptance and status quo bias perspectives, this study develops an integrated model to explain healthcare professionals’ intention to use the health cloud service and their intention to resist it.MethodsA field survey was conducted in Taiwan to collect data from healthcare professionals; a structural equation model was used to examine the data. A valid sample of 209 healthcare professionals was collected for data analysis.ResultsThe results show that healthcare professionals’ resistance to the use of the health cloud is the result of regret avoidance, inertia, perceived value, switching costs, and perceived threat. Attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavior control are shown to have positive and direct effects on healthcare professionals’ intention to use the health cloud. The results also indicate a significant negative effect in the relationship between healthcare professionals’ intention and resistance to using the health cloud.ConclusionOur study illustrates the importance of incorporating user resistance in technology acceptance studies in general and in health technology usage studies in particular. This study also identifies key factors for practitioners and hospitals to make adoption decisions in relation to the health cloud. Further, the study provides a useful reference for future studies in this subject field.