Health Professionals' readiness and its associated factors to implement Telemedicine system at private Hospitals in Amhara Region, Ethiopia 2021.

Abstract

Abstract Introduction: Telemedicine has great potential to improve the health care system, access, quality, and affordability. Despite the fact that Telemedicine is a necessary tool for health care, implementation in low resource-limited countries islow and 90%of projects fail with out noteworthy contribution. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess health professionals' readiness and its associated factors to implement a Telemedicine system at private hospitals in Amhara Region, Ethiopia 2021. Method: Aninstitution-based cross-sectional study supplemented with a qualitative approach was conducted among 423 health professionals from March to April 2021 in Amhara Region. A self-administered questionnaire and in-depth interview were employed to collect the quantitative and qualitative data respectively. The data entry and analysis were performed by using Epi-info version 7.2 and SPSS version 20 software respectively. Descriptive statistics,bi-variable and multi-variable logistic regression analyses were undertaken. An adjusted odds ratio advisable in resource-limited settings. Keywords:Telemedicine,Readiness,HealthProfessionals,factors