A study of a rural community's readiness for telehealth

Abstract

A qualitative approach was used to explore the readiness of a rural community for the implementation of telehealth services. There were four domains of interest: patient, practitioner, public and organization. Sixteen semistructured telephone interviews (three to five in each domain) were carried out with key informants and recorded on audio-tape. Two community awareness sessions were held, which were followed by five audio-taped focus groups (with five to eight people in each) in the practitioner, patient and public domains. In addition, two in-depth interviews were conducted with community physicians. Analysis of the data suggested that there were four types of community readiness: core, engagement, structural and non-readiness. The level of readiness varied across domains. There were six main themes: core readiness; structural readiness; projection of benefits; assessment of risk; awareness and education; and intra-group and inter-group dynamics. The results of the study can be used to investigate the readiness of rural and remote communities for telehealth, which should improve the chance of successful implementation.

E-Health readiness framework from Electronic Health Records perspective

“…By contrast, the readiness framework from Jennett et al (2003; is relatively comprehensive in terms of the evaluation scope. Sixteen semi-structured telephone interviews to four sets of stakeholders (patient, practitioner, organisation and public) (Project report for CANARIE, 2002) were conducted to examine complex social, political, organisational and infrastructure factors.…”

“…Although reviewed frameworks were not tested (Campell, 2001;Jennett 2003;Overhage, 2005), a recent study by Khoja et al (2007) aimed to test the reliability of E-Health readiness evaluation tools for both Managers and healthcare providers with four categories of measurements in developing countries. Separate scores (Cronbach's alpha) were measured for each of the four categories in both the tools.…”

“…Their exposure to EHR systems includes Recognition of benefits (Campbell et al 2001;Demiris et al 2004;Jennett et al 2003, i.e. efficient documentation of patient records (Protti, 2007;Schade et al 2006), protection of patients' privacy (Coiera et al, 2004;Galpottage et al, 2005), better provision of patients' information (Embi et al 2004;Sek et al 2007) and provision and sharing of timely information (Bakker, 2007;Blobel, 2006).…”

“…EHR implementations represent a disruptive change in the healthcare workplace. E-Health readiness assessment, a part of pre-implementation evaluation, becomes an essential requirement prior to implementation (Jennett et al 2003;Demiris et al 2004). …”

The maturity assessment of hospital information systems based on Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model – A comparison between private and governmental hospitals

“…[1][2][3][4] HIS is especially useful in hospitals because the system is complex with multiple factors and individuals or groups involved in the care of each patient. HIS can help prevent a variety of mistakes in such an environment.…”