(Scientific Session) Evaluation of User Experience and Acceptability of Healthcare Workers Towards the Use of Telerehabilitation in a Tertiary Government Hospital: A Single Center Cross Sectional Study

Background and/or Objectives: COVID-19 pandemic leads to the utilization of telerehabilitation to provide care for patients with rehabilitation needs. However, there are still barriers to its adoption and utilization. User acceptance by healthcare workers is one of the identified factors as a possible obstacle to its implementation. To date, there is a paucity of research regarding telemedicine in the Philippines. This study aimed to evaluate the user experience and to investigate the factors influencing the acceptability of Telemedicine among the rehabilitation medicine healthcare provider.

Design: Single-center cross-sectional study

Setting: Department of Rehabilitation Medicine of Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) from February to March 2022.

Participants: Rehabilitation medicine healthcare workers (Medical doctors, Physical therapist, Occupational therapist and Speech therapist)

Interventions: Not Applicable

Main Outcome Measures: Questionnaire includes a) Demographics profile of the participants; b) System Usability Scale (SUS) Questionnaire to determine user experience and c) Theory of Acceptance Model (TAM) Questionnaire to evaluate factors influencing acceptability and actual use of telemedicine.

Results: A total of 33 participants were included in the study. The average SUS is 59.3 which signifies that telerehabilitation is acceptable but with some usability problems that should be scrutinized. The mean score for individual TAM components is 3.31-Perceived Usefulness, 3.10- Perceived Ease of Use, 3.61- Behavioral intention to use, 3.95- Actual telemedicine use, and 3.85 for User satisfaction. Lastly, no significant difference was noted in terms of characteristics associated with user experience and acceptability of telerehabilitation

Conclusions: The experience and attitude of the healthcare workers were positive towards telerehabilitation. However, there are still some issues that should be addressed. One of the focuses should include further education and training to increase the perception of healthcare workers regarding the effectiveness and usefulness of the program. Addressing this problem will increase the intention and actual use of telerehabilitation which will eventually lead to higher satisfaction of healthcare workers in using telemedicine.