From Adoption to Diffusion of a Telehealth Innovation

Telehealth innovations promise to provide extensive medical benefits by increasing access to healthcare services and lowering costs at the same time. However, while many telehealth initiatives are considered technically viable and medically relevant, they often fail to go beyond the status of prototype applications. Motivated by our limited knowledge on how promising telehealth innovations are further diffused, this study offers a longitudinal investigation of a specific telehealth program and analyzes its initial adoption and further diffusion through commercialization initiatives. Framed as a diffusion of innovation study, the paper aims to offer research contributions as well as practical lessons. In terms of research, the paper expands our knowledge of the emerging IS research topic of telehealth innovations with an empirical investigation of a telehealth innovation. It also contributes to process-oriented diffusion of innovation research by challenging and expanding extant theories to a relatively new research context. In terms of practice, the study provides insights by detailing the transition process of a telehealth innovation from initial adoption to further diffusion and by identifying contextual issues that facilitates or challenges the transition.