Burmann Anja, Tischler Max, Faßbach Mira, Schneitler Sophie, Meister Sven
Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering, Dortmund, Germany.
Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany.
JMIR Med Inform. 2021 Nov 11;9(11):e31527. doi: 10.2196/31527.
Digitalization affects all areas of society, including the health care sector. However, the digitalization of health care provision is progressing slowly compared to other sectors. In the professional and political literature, physicians are partially portrayed as digitalization sceptics. Thus, the role of physicians in this process requires further investigation. The theory of "digital natives" suggests a lower hurdle for younger generations to engage with digital technologies.
The objective of this study was to investigate the role of physicians in the process of digitalizing health care provision in Germany and to assess the age factor.
We conducted a large-scale study to assess the role of this professional group in the progress of the digital transformation of the German health care sector. Therefore, in an anonymous online survey, we inquired about the current digital penetration of the personal working environment, expectations, attitude toward, and concerns regarding digitalization. Based on these data, we studied associations with the nominal variable age and variations across 2 age groups.
The 1274 participants included in the study generally showed a high affinity towards digitalization with a mean of 3.88 on a 5-point Likert scale; 723 respondents (56.75%) stated they personally use mobile apps in their everyday working life, with a weak tendency to be associated with the respondents' age (η=0.26). Participants saw the most noticeable existing benefits through digitalization in data quality and readability (882/1274, 69.23%) and the least in patient engagement (213/1274, 16.72%). Medical practitioners preponderantly expect further improvements through increased digitalization across almost all queried areas but the most in access to medical knowledge (1136/1274, 89.17%), treatment of orphan diseases (1016/1274, 79.75%), and medical research (1023/1274, 80.30%).
Respondents defined their role in the digitalization of health care provision as ambivalent: "scrutinizing" on the one hand but "active" and "open" on the other. A gap between willingness to participate and digital sovereignty was indicated. Thus, education on digitalization as a means to support health care provision should not only be included in the course of study but also in the continuing process of further and advanced training.
数字化影响着社会的各个领域，包括医疗保健部门。然而，与其他部门相比，医疗保健服务的数字化进程较为缓慢。在专业文献和政治文献中，医生在一定程度上被描绘为数字化怀疑论者。因此，医生在这一过程中的作用需要进一步研究。“数字原生代”理论表明，年轻一代在使用数字技术方面的障碍较低。
本研究的目的是调查德国医生在医疗保健服务数字化过程中的作用，并评估年龄因素。
我们开展了一项大规模研究，以评估这一专业群体在德国医疗保健部门数字转型进程中的作用。因此，在一项匿名在线调查中，我们询问了个人工作环境当前的数字普及程度、对数字化的期望、态度以及担忧。基于这些数据，我们研究了与名义变量年龄的关联以及两个年龄组之间的差异。
纳入研究的1274名参与者总体上对数字化表现出较高的亲和力，在5分制李克特量表上的平均得分为3.88；723名受访者（56.75%）表示他们在日常工作中个人使用移动应用程序，与受访者年龄的关联趋势较弱（η=0.26）。参与者认为数字化在数据质量和可读性方面带来的现有好处最为明显（882/1274，69.23%），而在患者参与方面最少（213/1274，16.72%）。医生们普遍期望通过几乎所有被调查领域的数字化进一步改善，但在获取医学知识方面期望最高（1136/1274，89.17%），在罕见病治疗方面（1016/1274，79.75%），以及医学研究方面（1023/1274，80.30%）。
受访者将他们在医疗保健服务数字化中的作用定义为矛盾的：一方面是“审视”，另一方面是“积极”和“开放”。研究表明在参与意愿和数字主权之间存在差距。因此，将数字化教育作为支持医疗保健服务的一种手段，不仅应纳入学习课程，还应纳入继续医学教育和高级培训的持续过程中。
