Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Aug 11, 2022
Open Peer Review Period: Aug 11, 2022 - Oct 6, 2022
Date Accepted: Oct 4, 2022
Date Submitted to PubMed: Nov 18, 2022
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on eHealth use in daily practice and life: A qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with Dutch-speaking general practitioners in Belgium.
ABSTRACT
Background:
The COVID-19 crisis has led to rapid and far-reaching changes in digital healthcare, but little is known about what, why and how changes occurred in eHealth use in Flemish general practice during the pandemic.
Objective:
We sought to understand how physicians perceive and evaluate eHealth solutions and their eHealth experience during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods:
This qualitative study was conducted using semi-structured one-on-one in-depth interviews with the help of an interview guide. In this study, several areas were identified beforehand to help assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. These included the; perceptions of digital technologies in general practitioner practices; changes in the use of these technologies during and after the COVID-19 pandemic; the adaptation of general practitioners to digitalization, the benefits, risks, and challenges of eHealth; the motivations of general practitioners; and future perspectives on eHealth. In this study, purposive sampling and snowballing methods were used. Between October 2021 and April 2022, we interviewed 15 Dutch-speaking general practitioners in the Flemish region via the Zoom online conferencing tool.
Results:
We found that eHealth was used more frequently during the COVID-19 pandemic than before and helped general practitioners reduce their workload. The study showed greater accessibility to healthcare services with eHealth use and the complementary use of digital and physical consultations. Our findings revealed a significant cognitive shift in physicians' perceptions, causing them to be more open and prepared to adopt eHealth solutions. However, there remains significant doubt and uncertainty about digital literacy for certain groups, privacy, data security, reimbursement, and the burden of technical ICT issues.
Conclusions:
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a tipping point for the adoption of eHealth by Flemish general practitioners. eHealth is an essential complementary healthcare offering and can reduce pressure on healthcare as well as increase healthcare accessibility. Sensitive aspects such as privacy, data security, digital literacy, reimbursement, and the burden of technical ICT issues are particularly emphasized.
Citation
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Copyright
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