Currently accepted at: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Dec 31, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Jan 1, 2026 - Feb 26, 2026
Date Accepted: Mar 17, 2026
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
This paper has been accepted and is currently in production.
It will appear shortly on 10.2196/90623
The final accepted version (not copyedited yet) is in this tab.
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Digital Health Technology Use Among Rehabilitation Professionals in China: A National Cross-Sectional Survey
ABSTRACT
Background:
The rapid expansion of rehabilitation needs in China has intensified pressure on a workforce that remains unevenly distributed. Digital health technologies offer potential to increase service reach and efficiency. However, little is known about how rehabilitation professionals currently gather and document clinical information, nor about their readiness to integrate digital tools into routine practice within China’s rapidly digitalizing health system.
Objective:
This study aimed to describe how rehabilitation professionals in China collect subjective and objective clinical information, document patient data in routine practice, and assess their willingness to use digital health technologies in clinical settings.
Methods:
We conducted a national observational cross-sectional survey using a culturally adapted questionnaire based on the World Health Organization Digital Health Interventions framework. The instrument assessed participant characteristics, information collection methods, documentation practices and willingness to adopt digital functions across rehabilitation activities. Descriptive analyses and subgroup comparisons were performed on 324 complete responses from certified rehabilitation professionals.
Results:
Respondents represented 20 provinces across China, and 82.7% were employed in public sector rehabilitation services, consistent with national workforce distribution patterns. Traditional methods dominated clinical work. Face to face communication was used frequently for subjective assessment by 96.3% of respondents, whereas digital channels such as email (14.2%) and telephone (5.2%) saw limited use. For objective information, visual observation (83.7%) and manual measurement tools (60.2%) remained the primary approaches, while motion capture technology (13.8%) and wearable sensors (4.0%) were rarely used. Documentation practices also relied heavily on analogue formats, with 82.1% using handwritten notes and 60.2% using paper templates. In contrast, willingness to adopt digital health technologies was consistently high with more than 75% of respondents indicated readiness to use digital systems for identity verification, progress tracking and outcome measurement.
Conclusions:
Rehabilitation professionals in China demonstrate strong readiness to use digital health technologies, yet their routine practice remains largely paper based and analogue. These findings provide national level evidence to inform implementation strategies, workforce training and system level planning aimed at accelerating digital transformation in rehabilitation services.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.