An Empirical Investigation on Technology Acceptance of AI-Enabled Clinical Decision Support Systems in Nursing Practice

As health information technology continues to attract immense research interest, leveraging more clinical information and adapting to changes in quality care, nursing informatics is assuming a larger role in nursing practice. Using knowledge discovery in data approach with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, one can implement Intelligent Clinical Decision Support Systems (i-CDSS). The acceptance on behalf of nursing personnel of i-CDSS is crucial for merging technology into healthcare and thus optimizing clinical care quality. This paper aims to investigate the factors that affect nurses' intention to adopt and use i-CDSS in their workflow. To do so, it carries out a questionnaire-based survey among registered nurses, based on an appropriate extension of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). The results of the analysis provide evidence that perceived financial cost, perceived reliability/trust, and social influence are useful predictors regarding nurses' intention to adopt i-CDSS. As such, the contribution of the paper lies in facilitating the efforts of researchers and health services in providing proper strategies that will enable the implementation of i-CDSS in nursing practice.