The Sri Lankan enigma: demystifying public healthcare information systems acceptance

The deployment of Health Information Systems (HIS) in Sri Lanka has been low in adoption compared to developed countries. There has been a dearth of studies to identify the factors that improve the adoption of HIS in developing countries. Thus, this study investigates the factors influencing the acceptance of HIS among public healthcare staff. A survey was administered among 170 medical professionals, including nurses and doctors. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was applied to the dataset with 5000 bootstrap subsamples. The research model was developed based on the prior literature and by extending the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to the context of public healthcare. A positive relationship was observed between the actual use of HIS and constructs such as perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude, behavioural intention, prior use of HIS by supervisors, computer anxiety and facilitating conditions. These findings confirm the applicability of the proposed extended TAM in the public healthcare system of a developing country. Furthermore, HIS practitioners and policymakers in the healthcare sector would find these results valuable.