Evaluating Telemedicine Systems Success: A Revised Model

Broadly, telemedicine refers to the use of information and telecommunication technologies to distribute information and/or expertise necessary for healthcare service provision, collaboration and/or delivery among geographically separated participants, including physicians and patients. Evaluation of telemedicine systems success or effectiveness is a fundamental challenge to healthcare organizations. A review of previous telemedicine research suggests a focused evaluation approach, thus offering limited discussion of comprehensive views of systems success or systematic and practical guidance to its evaluations. Based on a prevalent information systems success model, this paper proposes and describes a revised model for evaluating telemedicine systems success in clinical and organizational settings. Plausible applications of the proposed model are illustrated using teleradiology as an example. In addition, several future research directions that extend the reported study are also highlighted.