Department of Political Science and Sociology, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Department of Sociology, Political Science and Administration, and Philosophy, University of Vigo, Pontevedra, Spain.
J Med Internet Res. 2023 May 18;25:e42304. doi: 10.2196/42304.
The accelerated development of information and communication technologies has made health care one of the pioneering fields in the incorporation of these tools. As new technologies have been applied, existing technologies have been sophisticated and improved and the concept of eHealth has expanded. However, these advances and expansion of eHealth do not seem to have served to adapt the supply of services to users' demands; rather, supply seems to be governed by other variables.
The main objective of this work was to review the existing differences between user demands and the supply of eHealth services in Spain and their causes. The aim is to provide information on the level of use of the services and the causes of the variation in demand for these services, which can be useful in correcting existing differences and adapting them to the needs of users.
A survey, "Use and Attitudes Toward eHealth in Spain," was applied by telephone to a sample of 1695 people aged 18 years and over, taking into account sociodemographic profile characteristics (sex, age, habitat, educational level). The confidence level was set at 95% and the margin of error was ±2.45 for the whole sample.
The survey results showed that the online doctor's appointment service is the most frequently used eHealth service by users: 72.48% of respondents used this service at some point and 21.28% stated that they use it regularly. The other services showed significantly lower percentages of use, including "managing health cards" (28.04%), "consulting medical history" (20.37%), "managing test results" (20.22%), "communicating with health professionals" (17.80%), and "requesting a change of doctor" (13.76%). Despite this low usage, a large majority of respondents (80.00%) attach great importance to all the services offered. Overall, 16.52% of the users surveyed were willing to make new service requests to the regional websites, with 9.33% of them highlighting services such as "the availability of a complaints and claims mailbox," "the possibility of consulting medical records," and "the availability of more detailed information on medical centers (location, medical directory, waiting lists, etc)." Other outstanding requests (8.00%) were to simplify the procedures for using certain existing services.
The data from the survey show that eHealth services are widely known and highly valued by users, but not all services are used with the same frequency or intensity. It appears that users find it difficult to suggest new services that might be useful to them in terms of demand for new services that do not currently exist. It would be useful to use qualitative studies to gain a deeper understanding of currently unmet needs and the possibilities of eHealth. The lack of access to and use of these services and the unmet needs particularly affect more vulnerable populations who have the greatest difficulty in meeting their needs through alternative means to eHealth.
信息和通信技术的飞速发展使医疗保健成为采用这些工具的先驱领域之一。随着新技术的应用，现有技术得到了完善和改进，电子健康的概念也得到了扩展。然而，这些电子健康的进步和扩展似乎并没有使服务的供应适应用户的需求；相反，供应似乎受到其他变量的控制。
本工作的主要目的是回顾西班牙现有的用户需求与电子健康服务供应之间的差异及其原因。目的是提供有关服务使用水平和对这些服务需求变化的原因的信息，这对于纠正现有差异并使其适应用户需求可能是有用的。
通过电话对 1695 名年龄在 18 岁及以上的人进行了一项名为“西班牙电子健康使用和态度”的调查，考虑了社会人口统计学特征（性别、年龄、居住地、教育水平）。置信水平设定为 95%，整个样本的误差幅度为±2.45。
调查结果表明，在线预约医生服务是用户最常使用的电子健康服务：72.48%的受访者曾使用过该服务，21.28%的受访者表示他们经常使用该服务。其他服务的使用率明显较低，包括“管理健康卡”（28.04%）、“查询病历”（20.37%）、“管理化验结果”（20.22%）、“与卫生专业人员交流”（17.80%）和“请求换医生”（13.76%）。尽管使用率较低，但绝大多数受访者（80.00%）非常重视提供的所有服务。总体而言，16.52%的被调查用户愿意向地区网站提出新的服务请求，其中 9.33%的用户强调了“提供投诉和索赔邮箱”、“查询病历的可能性”和“提供更多详细的医疗中心信息（位置、医疗目录、等待名单等）”等服务。其他突出的请求（8.00%）是简化某些现有服务的使用程序。
调查数据显示，电子健康服务为用户所熟知且深受其重视，但并非所有服务的使用频率或强度都相同。用户似乎难以提出对他们有用的新服务建议，而这些新服务在目前并不存在。使用定性研究来更深入地了解当前未满足的需求和电子健康的可能性将是有益的。这些服务的获取和使用不足以及未满足的需求特别影响到弱势群体，他们通过电子健康以外的替代手段满足需求的难度最大。
