Center for Medical Statistics, Informatics and Intelligent Systems, Institute of Medical, Information Management, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH, Graz, Austria.
BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2019 Jan 29;19(1):26. doi: 10.1186/s12911-019-0746-7.
Telemonitoring services could dramatically improve the care of diabetes patients by enhancing their quality of life while decreasing healthcare expenditures. However, the potential for implementing innovative treatment options in the Austrian public and private health system is not known yet. Thus, we analyzed the readiness to use telemonitoring in diabetes care among Austrian practitioners.
We conducted an online survey among a purposive sample of Austrian practitioners (n = 41) using an adapted German version of the practitioner telehealth readiness assessment tool. We assessed three readiness domains for telemonitoring in the context of diabetes care, i.e. core readiness, engagement readiness, and structural readiness, and validated the German tool using principal components analysis.
Study subjects perceived themselves as open to innovations and also expressed optimistic attitudes towards telemonitoring in general and offering telemonitoring-based services for their patients. Participants achieved a medium average readiness level for telemonitoring (58.2, 95% CI 53.9-62.5) and were thus in a good position to use telemonitoring, although some arguments may adversely affected its use. The top three perceived benefits of telemonitoring were enhanced quality of treatment, better therapy adjustment, and reduced travel and waiting times for patients. The top three barriers were reduced personal communication, practitioner time expenditure and equally placed poor financial compensation as well as data security and privacy issues.
Our data revealed that Austrian practitioners showed a quite moderate readiness to use telemonitoring in diabetes care. To further advance telemonitoring readiness among all pillars of diabetes care in Austria, joint efforts among healthcare stakeholders are required to overcome existing financial, organizational, and technical obstacles.
远程监测服务可以通过提高糖尿病患者的生活质量，同时降低医疗保健支出，极大地改善他们的医疗服务。然而，在奥地利公共和私人医疗系统中实施创新治疗方案的潜力尚不清楚。因此，我们分析了奥地利从业者使用远程监测进行糖尿病护理的准备情况。
我们使用经过改编的德国版从业者远程医疗准备情况评估工具，对奥地利从业者（n=41）进行了一项有针对性的在线调查。我们评估了远程监测在糖尿病护理背景下的三个准备领域，即核心准备、参与准备和结构准备，并使用主成分分析对德国工具进行了验证。
研究对象认为自己对创新持开放态度，对远程监测总体以及为患者提供基于远程监测的服务也持乐观态度。参与者的远程监测准备水平处于中等水平（58.2，95%CI 53.9-62.5），因此他们能够很好地使用远程监测，尽管有些因素可能会对其使用产生不利影响。远程监测的前三大益处是提高治疗质量、更好地调整治疗方案以及减少患者的出行和等待时间。前三大障碍是减少个人沟通、医生时间支出以及同等程度的财务补偿不足，以及数据安全和隐私问题。
我们的数据显示，奥地利从业者在使用远程监测进行糖尿病护理方面表现出中等程度的准备。为了在奥地利所有糖尿病护理领域进一步提高远程监测的准备程度，需要医疗保健利益相关者共同努力，克服现有的财务、组织和技术障碍。
