Predicting success: stakeholder readiness for home telecare diabetic support

Readiness to adopt a new technology is one factor that contributes to the success of a telehealth programme. Since one goal of telehealth is to improve care, it is appropriate to determine its success through a quality-of-care framework that addresses structure, process and outcome. A qualitative case study of home care in the Calgary Health Region in Alberta set out to understand how clients, nurses, physicians and managers perceived their readiness to use video-visits for home care. Focus groups, home visits, and telephone and face-to-face interviews were used to collect data. Readiness to adopt home telecare was compared between groups, as well as with behaviour predicted in the literature. Differences in perceptions were identified among the four participant groups. Clients and managers identified a higher degree of readiness - clients because of the potential to support independence in their homes and managers because of the potential efficiencies in the system.