JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Telemedicine, or online medical care (OMC), has gained considerable attention worldwide. However, it has not been widely adopted in Japan, and the detailed status of OMC received and provided, and the reasons for its lack of popularity remain unknown.

Objective:

We aimed to investigate the current status of OMC in Japan and the factors limiting its adoption from the perspective of both patients receiving OMC and medical professionals providing OMC.

Methods:

Two nationwide questionnaire surveys were conducted. The first survey, which targeted both patients and healthy individuals, screened approximately 40,000 participants from 4.5 million panels. The participants were selected to match the age distribution of the Japanese population, based on government data. and their OMC experience and medical visit status were recorded. To further investigate OMC use and satisfaction, a web-based survey was conducted with 6000 participants. The second survey, which targeted medical professionals, randomly selected 4900 medical facilities and conducted a web-based survey with a doctor, a nurse, and an administrative staff in each facility to inquire about their OMC practices and impressions. Furthermore, both surveys investigated the factors limiting OMC expansion in Japan.

Results:

The response rates among patients/healthy individuals surveyed for the screening and main surveys were 92.5%, and ˃ 80%, respectively. The survey of medical professionals yielded 1,552 responses (618 physicians, 428 nurses, and 506 administrative staff). Although the facility-level response rate was low (16.3%), some facility categories had relatively high response rates (20.6–43.2%). Only 5.3% of the facilities had implemented OMC. Approximately 80% of patients and healthy individuals with OMC experience were satisfied. In both surveys, the most frequently selected factor preventing the widespread use of OMC was the necessity for patients to switch to face-to-face medical care for mandatory tests and procedures. Inadequate awareness and education about OMC were also highly selected. In addition, other responses from medical professionals indicated that the difficulty of various medical procedures in OMC compared to face-to-face medical care was a major limiting factor. Developing technologies and improving the healthcare system is imperative to facilitate performing tests and procedures within the framework of OMC, and efforts should focus on educating and informing both the public, including patients and the medical community, about the benefits and capabilities of OMC.

Conclusions:

Our nationwide surveys have provided insights into the current status of OMC in Japan and simultaneously identified several problems and issues related to OMC, which will be useful to promote the wider adoption of OMC.