Examining a model of mobile healthcare technology acceptance by the elderly

wish to thank two anonymous referees for their comments on our manuscript of research-in-progress in PACIS 2013. 2 Examining a model of mobile healthcare technology acceptance by the elderly Extended abstract " Graying of the globe " is increasing exponentially worldwide due to the rising number of seniors and retirees in developed countries; accompany with this phenomenon is the expanding healthcare costs for long-term care and hospitalization. Given current trend, people aged over 60 in Taiwan was nearly 4 million in 2012, and will reach 6.5 million by 2025, approximately one quarter of total population. In response to the aging of Taiwan's population and the accompanying enormous Medicare expenses, the Home-Department of Health in Taiwan has planned to carry out the " Telecare Service Development Project " from 2010 to 2014. The tele-healthcare centers will provide 24-hour continuous healthcare consulting and health management services, and assist with patient referrals. By the end of June 2011, the network has already provided over 745 thousand times services but only for less than 4 thousand people. Previous medical literature suggested that the ultimate success of telemedicine depends not only on the technology itself but also on including user technology acceptance. These health applications become particularly relevant through the issue of access. Although the functions of wireless healthcare devices are to monitor elderly people's biometric measurements and transmit emergency signals as a means of precaution, elderly people tend not to be accustomed to modern technology. Therefore, the ultimate success of these mobile healthcare systems relies on the acceptance of elderly people. This study addressed two main questions: " What factors impact the elders' acceptance of mobile wireless healthcare technology? " and " Does the technology acceptance model (TAM) adequately generalize to mobile wireless healthcare technology among the elderly? " By answering these questions, the study contributes to the knowledge gap regarding the mobile wireless healthcare technology by integrating the TAM, and other factors including individual differences referring to health cognition, technology characteristics, and social influences. Past IS studies related to mobile healthcare have been conducted by healthcare 3 professionals such as physicians. Instead, the current study investigates the use intention of mobile healthcare-related devices from the perspectives of elderly people, as only a few other studies have done. Therefore, we aim to propose an extended TAM model to examine the elderly users' perceptions of mobile healthcare technology. We employed the survey methodology to investigate …