An ehealth Adoption Framework for Developing Countries: A Systematic Review

Abstract

There is growing interest in the rate of eHealth uptake resulting from the increased potential to advance the quality of healthcare services in both the developed and developing countries. Although the implementation of information and communication technology to support healthcare delivery would greatly address the quality and accessibility challenges in healthcare as well as reduction in the cost of healthcare delivery, the adoption of eHealth has not been fully realized. This study aimed at conducting a systematic literature review to establish the factors associated with the adoption of eHealth and propose a context-specific framework for successful adoption of eHealth technologies in developing countries such as Uganda. The systematic literature review process was guided by the Systematic Review Protocol. The review of 29 journals from the period 2009-2021 showed that, although the most widely used frameworks in the developing countries were Technology Adoption Model (TAM), Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) framework and Technology Organization Environment (TOE) framework, there were other salient factors reported by other researchers that contributed to the adoption of eHealth in developing countries. A novel framework for adoption of eHealth in the local context with eight (8) dimensions namely; Socio-demographic, Technology, Information, Socio-cultural, Organization, Governance, Ethical and legal and Financial dimensions is derived and presented as result of the research.