Telehealth has the potential to address challenges faced by the healthcare industry. To achieve the intended goals of telehealth programmes, stakeholders should engage with these services. Prior research demonstrates that perceived value influences stakeholder engagement in a system-based service. Therefore, this review aims to synthesise the value perceptions of telehealth stakeholders.
The review followed Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines.
Articles published between 1 January 2013 and 31 December 2024 were identified through SCOPUS, PubMed and Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) digital library database search, and screening relevant article reference and citation lists.
Articles examining a single-specific telehealth application, proving evidence of post-use value by one or more stakeholder groups were selected.
Two independent reviewers used standardised methods to search, screen and code included studies. Information was recorded related to telehealth type, stakeholders, reported perceived value from the articles and codes were developed successively from specific perceived outcomes.
140 articles were included in the review. The selected studies assessed various types of telehealth applications with a balanced representation of the types of care, telehealth modality and service. The stakeholders were patients and/or healthcare providers; the majority (82.85%) focusing on patients’ view. The reported perceived value outcomes were diverse and categorised into six themes: access to care, care effectiveness and efficiency, quality of care, affective outcomes and human capital. None of the studies reported all these value dimensions and there wasn’t a single value dimension reported by all studies.
The review demonstrates the diversity and fragmentation in perceived value of telehealth. Within each theme, there were variances in how different stakeholders defined their meaning. These insights highlight the multi-dimensional and context-specific nature of perceived value. This comprehensive view of value can inform the design of telehealth programmes to motivate the engagement of all stakeholders.