Digital Health Adoption Among Professionals in Abu Dhabi’s Public Hospitals

This research investigates the adoption and acceptance of Digital Health (DH) applications among healthcare professionals in public hospitals in Abu Dhabi (AD). The study is based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), and the researcher proposes additional elements to improve the model's applicability in the context of adopting DH applications. Using a quantitative research method, this study examines the factors affecting the behavioural intention (BI) and actual usage (USE) of applications that include electronic health records (EHR) and electronic medical records (EMR). The study sample comprises 364 healthcare professionals. The results indicate a strong preference for implementing DH applications, as 44.0% of the participants actively use these solutions. Nevertheless, adoption rates decline as applications become more advanced, suggesting the existence of an innovation-adoption gap. The study confirmed that personal and demographic factors such as age, education and DH experience are important elements that greatly influence the use of technology, but gender, position, work experience, IT skills and training had no significant impact on the intention to use DH applications. The original UTAUT model elements, performance expectancy (PE) and effort expectancy (EE), were found to have no impact on behavioural intentions (BI) to use DH applications in AD public hospitals. In contrast, social influence (SI) from the original UTAUT model, along with the new proposed constructs by the researcher, self-efficacy (SE), and management and leadership involvement (MLI) significantly influenced these intentions. For usage intention (USE), the original UTAUT model elements, facilitating conditions (FC) and intention behaviour (BI) showed no effect. The study determines that effective deployment of DH requires a user-centric strategy, strong infrastructure, supportive leadership, and thorough training programmes. Additionally, it emphasises the importance of user-friendly solutions, peer influence, continuous support, and collaboration with technology providers as important factors for successfully integrating DH applications in AD’s healthcare sector. This study enhances comprehension of the adoption of DH applications in public hospitals in AD, offering valuable insights for focused initiatives to improve patient care and operational effectiveness using DH technology.