Culture, emotion, and the connected patient: Understanding IoT healthcare adoption

Abstract

The paper examines the main drivers of Internet of Things (IoT) services to identify them and present insights on the adoption in the healthcare industry in India, considering both supporting and inhibiting factors. Data were gathered with the help of an online survey of hospital patients      across the country. Using SEM (structural equation modeling) and for path analysis we used PROCESS macro, the findings indicate that cultural values strongly affects individual’s motivations for IoT adoption, shaping their attitudes, and their behavioral intentions toward IoT-based healthcare solutions. The analysis shows that motivational conditions and the intention to implement IoT technologies are mediated by the attitudes. However, the emotional intelligence did not have a statistically significant effect on attitude and intention relationship. This research finds major obstacles to the adoption of IoT, including the levels of technology complexity and fears of data security challenges, which may not allow users to adopt them. These concerns can be reduced because, by doing so, it will close the gap between positive attitudes and actual use. This study provides a fresh perspective by combining cultural and behavioral factors such as positive and negative motivations, attitudes, and intentions related to IoT adoption in healthcare. It also notices the role of emotional intelligence as a moderating factor, which is an understudied factor in this field. Additionally, it supports the use of Behavioral Reasoning Theory as a conceptual lens for understanding consumer decision-making in the realm of IoT-enabled healthcare.