An empirical investigation of the adoption of mobile health applications: integrating big data and social media services

With the advancement of digital technologies, the mobile healthcare industry aims to enhance health intelligence through delivering transformational digital services. This study integrates knowledge derived from three models of innovation diffusion, privacy calculus, and information systems success with the current studies on technology acceptance literature in the context of mHealth apps. It focuses on the contribution of big data and social media in enhancing mobile health apps and their impact on patients’ behavior and adoption. Through structural equation modeling of 582 questionnaires, this study develops a framework analyzing the impact of data quality, social interactivity, personalization, data risk, and performance risk. The study confirms the association between personalization, data quality, and data risk on the adoption decisions, while it did not find a link between social connectivity and the adoption decision. Theoretically, this paper builds new knowledge on the technology adoption literature by emphasizing digital services in the context of mobile health apps. Practically, this paper can assist the healthcare care industry to re-engineer its traditional business models by delivering enhanced digital services during the design of mobile health apps.