Cultural Issues in Telemedicine Adoption in USA and Brazil: Perception of Healthcare Professionals
Abstract
Telemedicine has recently garnered more attention from healthcare professionals because it provides access to health services to patients in rural areas while making patient healthcare information more vulnerable to security breaches. The objective of the present research is to identify factors that play a critical role in possible adoption of telemedicine in USA and Brazil. More specifically, the research explores the healthcare professionals’ perceptions of how culture influences telemedicine adoption issues. A model with four hypotheses was used to establish a research framework. A survey was conducted involving healthcare professionals in the aforementioned countries. The results showed that culture influences security, privacy, policies, and implementation issues while implementing telemedicine. It can be inferred from the research that perceptions of American and Brazilian healthcare professionals are similar in telemedicine issues covered in the present research. These healthcare professionals, however, disagrees on how patients’ privacy should be preserved in the two countries.