Key factors for a successful implementation of personalized e-health services

Personalized e-health services hold many promises, e.g. the improvement of health care quality or the reduction of costs. However, such services can't tap their full potential if they will not be used. That's why it is essential to understand what brings potential users to accept them. In the literature many acceptance models exist that predict the usage of innovations, but none of them specifically refers to the adoption of e-health services. Therefore we combined the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and the e-health literacy concept and enhanced the resulting model with additional factors. MEDLINE® was searched; 75 studies were included for final analysis. Apart from the UTAUT variables and e-health literacy, 10 additional factors were identified: anxiety, trust, attitude toward using, computer self-efficacy, perceived system quality, search strategy, user's condition, health specific knowledge, Internet dependency and satisfaction with medical care. Future research will include the devolvement of an instrument for assessing these factors and testing the initial research model in an international context.