Attitudes among healthcare professionals towards ICT and home follow-up in chronic heart failure care

BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making

Research Article

Maria Schaufelberger¹  Bengt Arne Sjöqvist²  Anna Gund²  Harshida Patel³  Kaj Lindecrantz⁴ 

[1] Department of Emergency and Cardiovascular Medicine, Institute of Medicine, Sahlgrenska Academy at University of Gothenburg, 416 85, Gothenburg, Sweden;Department of Signals and Systems, Chalmers University of Technology, 412 96, Gothenburg, Sweden;Institute of Health and Care Sciences, Sahlgrenska Academy at University of Gothenburg, 405 30, Gothenburg, Sweden;School of Technology and Health, KTH - Royal Institute of Technology, 100 44, Stockholm, Sweden;Department of Clinincal Science, Intervention and Technology, Karolinska Institutet, 141 86, Stockholm, Sweden;

关键词: Healthcare Professional;    Chronic Heart Failure;    Chronic Heart Failure Patient;    Home Monitoring;    eHealth Application;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6947-12-138

 received in 2012-02-20, accepted in 2012-11-21,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundeHealth applications for out-of-hospital monitoring and treatment follow-up have been advocated for many years as a promising tool to improve treatment compliance, promote individualized care and obtain a person-centred care. Despite these benefits and a large number of promising projects, a major breakthrough in everyday care is generally still lacking. Inappropriate organization for eHealth technology, reluctance from users in the introduction of new working methods, and resistance to information and communication technology (ICT) in general could be reasons for this. Another reason may be attitudes towards the potential in out-of-hospital eHealth applications. It is therefore of interest to study the general opinions among healthcare professionals to ICT in healthcare, as well as the attitudes towards using ICT as a tool for patient monitoring and follow-up at home. One specific area of interest is in-home follow-up of elderly patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). The aim of this paper is to investigate the attitudes towards ICT, as well as distance monitoring and follow-up, among healthcare professionals working with this patient group.MethodThis paper covers an attitude survey study based on responses from 139 healthcare professionals working with CHF care in Swedish hospital departments, i.e. cardiology and medicine departments. Comparisons between physicians and nurses, and in some cases between genders, on attitudes towards ICT tools and follow-up at home were performed.ResultsOut of the 425 forms sent out, 139 were collected, and 17 out of 21 counties and regions were covered in the replies. Among the respondents, 66% were nurses, 30% physicians and 4% others. As for gender, 90% of nurses were female and 60% of physicians were male. Internet was used daily by 67% of the respondents. Attitudes towards healthcare ICT were found positive as 74% were positive concerning healthcare ICT today, 96% were positive regarding the future of healthcare ICT, and 54% had high confidence in healthcare ICT. Possibilities for distance monitoring/follow-up are good according to 63% of the respondents, 78% thought that this leads to increased patient involvement, and 80% thought it would improve possibilities to deliver better care. Finally, 72% of the respondents said CHF patients would benefit from home monitoring/follow-up to some extent, and 19% to a large extent. However, the best method of follow-up was considered to be home visits by nurse, or phone contact.ConclusionThe results indicate that a majority of the healthcare professionals in this study are positive to both current and future use of ICT tools in healthcare and home follow-up. Consequently other factors have to play an important role in the slow penetration of out-of-hospital eHealth applications in daily healthcare practice.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Gund et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012