Consumers' Perceptions of a Virtual Health Check: an Empirical Investigation

After years of the development of information systems (IS) designed primarily for healthcare managers and professionals, there is an increasing interest in reaching consumers and patients directly through consumer health information technology (IT). Consumer-centric health information systems enable individuals to manage their health better and maintain a healthier lifestyle. However, the foremost challenge in developing systems for health behavior change is that there is modest knowledge of how individuals interact with these systems and how they process and act on information. In addition, technologies cannot have the capacity to help facilitate self-monitoring and self-management or improve consumers' health outcomes if the consumers do not adopt them. The objective of this study is to investigate consumers’ perceptions of a virtual health check. Specifically, we propose and test factors affecting perceived persuasiveness of the system and whether perceived persuasiveness predicts intention to adopt virtual health coaching. A theoretically driven research model is constructed, and a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach, namely partial least squares (PLS), is used to test the model against the data gathered from 130 subjects. The results of the study lend support to the proposed model. Studying the adoption, use, and impact of innovative consumer health IT is worthwhile, as it will guide future implementations.