Background: Research demonstrates an improved quality of care in intensive care units (ICU) that use intensivist-led (physician specialized in critical care medicine) staffing and standardized care protocols. This use of intensivist-led staffing and standardized care protocols reduces variations in critical care delivery. However, there is currently an intensivist physician shortage, so recommendations are to supplement this gap with Telemedicine intensivist-led ICU (eICU^®) when on-site intensivist-led care is unavailable. However, lack of acceptance of eICU^® is demonstrated by low eICU^® use rates. When eICU ^® is not well accepted and therefore not used by bedside healthcare professionals’ patient outcomes do not improve with implementation. Thus, it is important to assess acceptance of eICU^® using a reliable instrument. However, there are few supported instruments for assessing eICU^® acceptance. This study evaluated the reliability of the eICU^® Acceptance Survey and the factors associated with healthcare professionals’ acceptance of eICU^®.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional, correlational study. Survey responses were collected anonymously through Survey Monkey.

Results: Overall the eICU^® Acceptance Survey was preforming well with mid-range means per item, adequate corrected item-total correlations, adequate item variability, acceptable inter-item correlations, and acceptable Cronbach’s α per subscale and for the total instrument. HCP attitude towards eICU^® and intention to use eICU^® demonstrated the strongest association, r(111) = .82, p < .001. The most significant variables that were associated with HCP attitudes towards eICU^®, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and intention to use eICU ^® was support from nurses. In addition, support from physicians was significantly associated with perceived usefulness and HCP attitudes towards eICU^®.

Conclusions: The eICU^® Acceptance Survey is a reliable evaluation instrument in post-implementation of eICU ^® service to examine healthcare professionals’ acceptance of eICU^®. Support from both physicians and nurses working in the ICU seems to have the most associations with the acceptance of eICU ^® service. Gaining support for eICU^® service from the bedside HCP cannot be overstated.