Exploring the factors that influence physician technostress from using mobile electronic medical records

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes an integrated model for investigating how physicians’ perceived individual and technology characteristics affect their technological stress (technostress) that is derived from using mobile electronic medical records (MEMRs). Individual characteristics comprise constructs of mobile self-efficacy and technology dependence, whereas perceived technology characteristics comprise constructs of perceived usefulness, complexity, and reliability. We employed the survey method to collect 158 valid questionnaires from physicians working at three branch hospitals to determine perceptions regarding MEMRs, yielding a response rate of 33.62%. Partial least squares, a structural equation modeling technique, was used for model examination and hypothesis testing. The results show that physicians have a low perception of MEMR dependence and technostress. Furthermore, physicians’ perceived MEMR technology dependency, mobile self-efficacy, and complexity were proven to significantly affect physician technostress when using MEMRs, whereas perceived usefulness and reliability were not. The explanatory power of the research model reached 67.8%. The results of this study provide valuable insights and significant knowledge for technostress in health care, particularly from academic and practical perspectives.

KEYWORDS:

• Mobile electronic medical records
• physicians
• technology dependency
• technostress

Acknowledgments

The researchers acknowledge the funding support for the present study from the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan (No. MOST 103-2410-H-04-003).

Declaration of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest