Understanding end-user support for health information technology: a theoretical framework.

Background: Support is often considered an important factor for successful implementation and realising the benefits of health information technology (HIT); however, there is a dearth of research on support and theoretical frameworks to characterise it.

Objective: To develop and present a comprehensive, holistic, framework for characterising enduser support that can be applied to various settings and types of information systems.

Method: Scoping review of the medical informatics and information systems literature.

Results: A theoretical framework of end-user support is presented. It includes the following facets: support source, location of support, support activities, and perceived characteristics of support and support personnel.

Conclusion: The proposed framework may be a useful tool for describing and characterising enduser support for HIT. it may also be used by decision makers and implementation leaders for planning purposes.