Acceptance of telemedical services in rural areas of Lower Austria

The Austrian healthcare system is facing various challenges as demographic change and increasing health costs occur, as well as changing and more complex demands arise. A too high frequency of hospital visits in cases that could often be treated by local general practitioners indicates that the Austrian basic healthcare system needs strengthening to meet these current and future trends and challenges. Even though telemedical services show the potential to improve the current situation and help serving these challenges, especially in rural areas, it is rarely adopted in Austria by now. Within this research a questionnaire, based on the UTAUT model for technology acceptance, was developed and distributed in the rural areas of Lower Austria in order to evaluate general practitioners’ acceptance of telemedical applications. The primary goal was to verify if there is an acceptance problem and to identify possible acceptance problem areas.