Abstract:

Introduction:
Various innovative technologies have been found to improve the diagnosis and administration of health care, treatment compliance, patient satisfaction, and improved service metrics. Yet, despite these proven documented benefits of innovative technologies and their integration across the health system, findings among health professionals still indicate on a relatively low acceptance and adoption of these technologies. To enhance the integration of innovative technologies into the health profession curriculum, our initial step was to investigate health professionals' utilization of innovative technologies in clinical practice. The current study utilized the Unified Theory of Technology Acceptance and Use (Venkatesh et al., 2003) as a theoretical framework.

Aims:
To explore:
a) health professionals’ usage of innovative technologies in clinical practice,
b) the associations between participants’ perceptions toward the adoption of innovative technologies and their actual use, and
c) the differences in participants’ perceptions and use of innovative technologies according to their personal and professional characteristics.

Method:
A cross-sectional, descriptive design using a self-administered questionnaire. Convenience sampling was employed to approach participants from the graduates of the health professions departments at a major university in central Israel in the past five years. Questions were uploaded in the format provided by a commercial Internet survey provider (Qualtrics.com) and distributed through the university’s alumni organization.

Results:
The sample consisted of 207 graduates: Nurses (N=68), Physical Therapists (N=32), Occupational therapists (N=34), and Communication Disorders (N=73), with a mean age of 31.24 ± 6.4 years. Most were women (89.9%) and reported not taking technology courses during their bachelor’s degree (89.4%). Most participants worked in hospital settings (47.3%). About half use various innovative technologies in clinical practice (52.7%). The average percentage of technology usage across professions in the four top-rated technologies ranged between 0-16.66% for constant use.
Technology usage was positively correlated to performance expectancy (r=.30, p<.05) and the importance of learning advanced technologies (r=.37, p<.05) among nurses and Occupational therapists, respectively. Significant negative correlations were found between performance expectancy and the importance of learning advanced technologies among Physical Therapists (r=-.55, p<.01) and among Communication Disorders (r=-.38, p<.01). Performance expectancy, the importance of learning cutting-edge technologies, and professional affiliation explain 29% of technology usage variance.

Conclusions:
It is recommended that faculty, across professions, develop and integrate knowledge and experiences in using innovative health technologies as part of the curriculum throughout the study years. This could promote students’ understanding of the use of technologies and their performance expectancy. As clinical learning is a central component of the curricula in the health professions, clinical instructors and mentors across professions must encourage and support students to experience and gain competence in using innovative technologies during clinical practice. These may promote their usage of innovative technologies as students and future practitioners and advance the quality of care and patient satisfaction.

Keywords:

Innovative technologies, health professionals, education.