Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Nov 12, 2018
Date Accepted: Jun 3, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Health care personnel's perspective on potential eHealth interventions to prevent hospitalizations for older persons receiving community care. A case study.
ABSTRACT
Background:
The use of assistive living technologies are suggested to help monitor and treat degenerative and chronic diseases through the use of sensors, alarms and reminders, and can potentially prevent hospitalizations for home-dwelling older persons receiving community care. It is increasingly recognized that health care personnel’s acceptance of a technological application remains a key challenge in adopting an intervention, thus interventions must be perceived to be useful and fit for purpose by the actual users.
Objective:
To identify and explore the perspectives of managers and health care personnel in community care regarding the use of assistive living technologies in terms of prevention of hospitalizations for home-dwelling older persons receiving community care.
Methods:
A case study with a qualitative approach was carried out in community care in a Norwegian municipality, comprising individual interviews and focus group interviews. Five individual interviews and two focus group interviews (n=12) were undertaken in order to provide a health care personnel’s and managers’ perspective regarding the use of assistive living technologies which potentially could prevent hospitalizations for home-dwelling older persons receiving community care. Data were analysed by way of systematic text condensation, as described by Malterud.
Results:
The data analysis of focus group interviews and individual interviews resulted in two categories: Potential technological applications and potential patient groups. Discussions in the focus groups generated several suggestions and wishes related to technical applications they could make use of in their day-to-day practice. Health care personnel warranted tools and measures to enhance and document their clinical observations in contact with patients. They also identified patient groups, such as patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or dehydration or urinary tract infections, for whom hospitalizations potentially could have been prevented.
Conclusions:
We have shown that health care personnel in community care warrant various technological applications, which have the potential to improve quality of care and improve resource utilization in the studied municipality. By identifying needs an important matters in practice we have identified factors paramount for acceptance and adoption of an intervention. Clinical Trial: N/A
Citation
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