gms | German Medical Science

Background: The shortage of skilled workers and the demographic change among both patients and healthcare professionals have caused an increasing workload in outpatient medical practices. These trends are contributing to healthcare professionals burning out and the quality of outpatient medical care being at risk. Medical practice staff craves support, especially with communication-related processes. Digital solutions for practice-patient communication (PPC) may potentially help to relieve practice staff and maintain or even optimize medical quality. Despite the rising multiplicity of digital health applications, digital PPC solutions have not yet been sufficiently assessed in the context of German outpatient medical care.

Objective: This study aimed to survey the communication between German outpatient medical and psychotherapy practices and their patients. Since practice owners and senior healthcare professionals play a pivotal role in the implementation of innovative technologies, the focus was on determining preferences of outpatient physicians and psychotherapists regarding both future analog and particularly digital communication channels and potential use cases.

Methods: We designed a quantitative, web-based survey to determine the mentioned preferences of German outpatient physicians and psychotherapists. For data collection, we used multiple choice and 5-point Likert scale questions. Convenience and snowball sampling methods were applied to recruit our target group. The survey was carried out in Germany in September/ October 2023. The questionnaires have been analyzed by applying descriptive and explorative methods. The CHERRIES-Checklist guided both the development of the questionnaire and the presentation of the results.

Results: Our web-based survey with 245 respondents revealed that the overall openness towards digital PPC solutions is relatively high (mean 4.29, SD 0.84). In contrast, more than 2/3 of respondents indicate that digital PPC solutions could be used for at most 60% of their current patient base. We found substantial differences regarding medical specialist groups; for example, psychotherapists reported a higher potential for digital PPC solutions (mean 3.18, SD 1.33), compared to the total sample (mean 2.77, SD 1.14). This difference is particularly large when it comes to the application of video consultations; here, 88.9% of participating psychotherapists would like to use this technology, compared to 43.3% overall. In general, the possible benefit of using digital PPC solutions has been rated positively, especially for reducing the burden on non-medical staff in general practitioner practices (ca. 70%). Overall, the most frequently expected risks of using digital PPC solutions are high implementation effort (62%) and data misuse (ca. 61%).

Implication for research and healthcare practice: Our study highlights the need of outpatient physicians and psychotherapists, particularly in relieving both medical and non-medical personnel capacity, and the general openness to the use of digital PPC solutions. By identifying these preferences, our findings support the development and implementation of digital PPC solutions specifically tailored to the heterogenous needs of the variety of medical specialist groups in German outpatient medical care settings. Therefore, user-centered approaches may have a positive impact on technology adoption and sustainable implementation of digital PPC solutions.

Funding: Other funding; Project name: Ecosystem-Based Mixed Methods Study to Identify Opportunities for Digitally Enabled Care in Outpatient Health Care Delivery Settings (EMIDOC); Industry Funding