The Changing Paradigm of Health and Mobile Phones

This article describes how widespread adoption of mobile technology in healthcare is an innovation that is inevitable today in both developed and emerging markets around the world. Mobile health services (m-Health) act as an effective, accessible and affordable means of providing healthcare knowledge to users directly from providers. Despite such benefits of m-Health services, rapid adoption is not yet occurring, particularly in emerging markets. The main barrier is mostly the cynical behavior of users regarding this medium of healthcare services. The aim of this article is to examine underlying factors that can influence future use intentions of m-Health services. Conceptual model of the study identifies service qualities like reliability, privacy, responsiveness, empathy and information quality along with facilitating conditions, trust, effort expectancy and performance expectancy as significant constructs that influences users' overall perceptions of m-Health services, along with moderating effects of age and gender. Limitations and implications for practice and research are also discussed.