PIA: Acceptability of the Practice Management Center PIA for hypertension treatment in general practices - Physicians´ and practice assistants´ point of view

Arian Karimzadeh, Frauke Leupold, Birgitta Weltermann

Keywords: Hypertension management, general practices, eHealth, UTAUT, technology acceptance

Background:
Lack of blood pressure control and continuous hypertension management is a key primary care deficit in Germany. International studies show that information communication technology (ICT) supported care leads to significant improvements in blood pressure control rates. However, overall adoption and acceptance of new technologies in general practices seem limited. Using data from the cluster-randomized PIA study, the present analysis aims to investigate barriers and facilitators for the acceptance of the PIA Practice Management Center (PIA-PrMC), which is a hypertension management software for general practices.

Research questions:
What are the barriers and factors influencing the acceptance of PIA-PrMC by physicians´ and practice assistants´?

Method:
In the PIA study, the PIA-PrMC is being used in 31 general practices with 32 physicians´ and 52 practice assistants´. We selected the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model for the analysis of barriers and facilitators for the use of the PIA IT solution. In the literature, the UTAUT model was successfully tested in the context of healthcare and indicates high predictive power. In UTAUT, Performance Expectancy, Effort Expectancy, and Social Influence are the factors (constructs) that explain Behavioral Intention to use a technology. The constructs Facilitating Conditions and Behavioral Intention have an influence on the Use Behavior. Gender, Age, Experience, and Voluntariness of Use are moderators in UTAUT. Subsequently, the UTAUT model is applied and evaluated quantitatively. To test the relationships between the constructs in the UTAUT model, we use partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

Results:
The data collection for the UTAUT-Model is currently taking place. The first results will be available by the time of the conference.

Conclusions:
The results of the UTAUT model will be taken into account in the further development of the PIA-PrMC to ensure long-term use of the system by users.

Points for discussion:
What are your experiences with ICT-driven approaches for disease management?

What are your experiences with barriers to using e-health technologies?