JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Various studies propose the significance of digital maturity in ensuring effective patient care and enabling improved health outcomes, a successful digital transformation, and optimized service delivery. While previous research has centered around inpatient healthcare settings, research on digital maturity in general practices is still in its infancy.

Objective:

As general practitioners (GPs) are the first point of contact for most patients, we aimed to shed light on the pivotal role of GPs’ inherent characteristics, especially their personality, in the digital maturity of general practices.

Methods:

We conducted a sequential mixed-methods study involving qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. First, we identified dimensions and indicators of digital maturity in a systematic literature review. We then conducted expert interviews with GPs to validate and extend our literature review results, ensuring the extracted indicators' relevance in general practice settings. In the next step, we designed an online survey to assess digital maturity and analyze the relationship with relevant inherent characteristics.

Results:

Results of our online survey with 219 GPs revealed that digital maturity was overall moderate (mean 3.31, SD 0.64) and substantially associated with several characteristics inherent to the GP. We found differences in overall digital maturity based on GPs’ gender, the expected future usage of digital health solutions, the perceived digital affinity of medical assistants, GPs’ level of affinity for technology interaction, and GPs’ level of extraversion and neuroticism. Additionally, in a linear hierarchical regression model, the expected future usage, the perceived digital affinity of medical assistants, GPs’ affinity for technology interaction, and neuroticism were significant predictors of overall digital maturity beyond demographics.

Conclusions:

Our study highlights the impact of GPs’ inherent characteristics, especially their personality, on the digital maturity of general practices. By identifying these inherent influencing factors, our findings further support a more targeted and effective roadmap toward digitalization in general practice settings.