TY - JOUR
T1 - How can we develop an efficient ehealth service for provision of care for elderly people with balance disorders and risk of falling?
T2 - A mixed methods study
AU - Gaspar, Andréa Gomes Martins
AU - Escada, Pedro
AU - Lapão, Luís Velez
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: This work was partially supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) for funds to Global Health and Tropical Medicine (GHTM) (UID/04413/2020 to LVL).
Funding Information:
This work was partially supported by Funda??o para a Ci?ncia e a Tecnologia (FCT) for funds to Global Health and Tropical Medicine (GHTM) (UID/04413/2020 to LVL).Portuguese General Medical Council (Ordem dos M?dicos), for the approval and availability of the link on the website of the Institution; Portuguese Societies and Associations who contributed to the dissemination of the link with the partners.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2021/7/2
Y1 - 2021/7/2
N2 - This study aimed to identify relevant topics for the development of an efficient eHealth service for elderly people with balance disorders and risk of falling, based on input from physicians providing healthcare to this patient group. In the quantitative part of the study, an open multiple-choice questionnaire was made available on the website of the Portuguese General Medical Council to assess the satisfaction with electronic medical records regarding clinical data available, the time needed to retrieve data and the usefulness of the data. Of the 118 participants, 55% were dissatisfied/very dissatisfied with data availability and 61% with the time spent to access and update data related to the focused patient group. Despite this negative experience, 76% considered future e-Health solutions as pertinent/very pertinent. Subsequently, these findings were further explored with eight semi-structured interviews. The physicians confirmed the reported dissatisfactions and pointed out the lack of comprehensive data and system interoperability as serious problems, causing inefficient health services with an overlap of emergency visits and uncoordinated diagnostics and treatment. In addition, they discussed the importance of camera and audio monitoring to add significant value. Our results indicate considerable potential for e-Health solutions, but substantial improvements are crucial to achieving such future solutions.
AB - This study aimed to identify relevant topics for the development of an efficient eHealth service for elderly people with balance disorders and risk of falling, based on input from physicians providing healthcare to this patient group. In the quantitative part of the study, an open multiple-choice questionnaire was made available on the website of the Portuguese General Medical Council to assess the satisfaction with electronic medical records regarding clinical data available, the time needed to retrieve data and the usefulness of the data. Of the 118 participants, 55% were dissatisfied/very dissatisfied with data availability and 61% with the time spent to access and update data related to the focused patient group. Despite this negative experience, 76% considered future e-Health solutions as pertinent/very pertinent. Subsequently, these findings were further explored with eight semi-structured interviews. The physicians confirmed the reported dissatisfactions and pointed out the lack of comprehensive data and system interoperability as serious problems, causing inefficient health services with an overlap of emergency visits and uncoordinated diagnostics and treatment. In addition, they discussed the importance of camera and audio monitoring to add significant value. Our results indicate considerable potential for e-Health solutions, but substantial improvements are crucial to achieving such future solutions.
KW - Balance disorders
KW - eHealth
KW - Elderly care
KW - Falls
KW - Mixed methods
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85109250971&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/ijerph18147410
DO - 10.3390/ijerph18147410
M3 - Article
C2 - 34299861
AN - SCOPUS:85109250971
SN - 1661-7827
VL - 18
SP - 1
EP - 18
JO - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
JF - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
IS - 14
M1 - 7410
ER -