Diagnosing Patients and Recommending mHealth Technology? Exploring Physicians' Intention to Influence Patients' Use of Self-Health Management Technology

Abstract

This paper introduces a new type of IT role, IT influencers. We define IT influencers as persons whose decision-making is critical but who do not directly use the focal technology. Then we contextualize the social role of IT influencers within the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) framework to explore the conditions under which such individuals demonstrate IT-directed social behavior, termed intention to influence and become a social influence upon the targeted user’s technology use. We look at physicians, as IT influencers, and chronic diabetic patients, as IT users, who work together to promote patients' self-management of chronic diabetes using mobile health (mHealth) technology. The results demonstrated that physicians' evaluation of both IT and patients' technical ability led to intention to influence patients' use of mHealth technology. Furthermore, intent to influence is promoted in a social context in which supporting resources are available for both IT users.