1 USER ACCEPTANCE OF TELEMEDICINE BY HEALTH CARE WORKERS A CASE OF THE EASTERN CAPE PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA

The Eastern Cape province of South Africa is one of the poorest provinces in the country with vast rural areas. A telemedicine system was implemented in the province in order to improve health care services. Despite large investments from the National Department of Health, only a third of telemedicine sites in the province are operational. Technology problems, such as unreliable electricity supply and low bandwidth, was identified as barriers to the successful implementation of telemedicine in South Africa, but these issues have since been addressed. Nevertheless, the uptake of telemedicine remains poor. One of the documented barriers to the successful implementation of telemedicine is user acceptance by health care workers. This study made use of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to identify the factors that influence the user acceptance of telemedicine among health care workers in a developing country such as South Africa. The study used a quantitative survey approach. A questionnaire was distributed to all the hospitals and clinics around the province where telemedicine had been implemented. The results were analyzed using SPSS 20 and the conclusions drawn from the results were presented to five experts in the field of telemedicin