How Professionals Share an E-Care Plan for the Elderly in Primary Care: Evaluating the Use of an E-Communication Tool by Different Combinations of Professionals

Abstract

BackgroundHome-dwelling elderly patients with multimorbidity are at risk of fragmentation of care because of the many different professionals involved and a potentially unclear level of communication. Multidisciplinary communication seems to occur incidentally. Mutual feedback is needed for a professional team to provide consistent care and adequate support to the patient system. eHealth technology can improve outcomes.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to evaluate the use of a tool, Congredi, for electronic communication by professionals for the care of home-dwelling elderly patients.MethodsThe research group was recruited through general practices and home care organizations. Congredi, a tool designed for multidisciplinary communication, was made available for professionals in primary care. It consists of a care plan and a communication channel (secure emailing). Professionals opened Congredi records for elderly patients who had 2 or more professionals involved. The records were the unit of analysis. Data were gathered from the Congredi system over a period of 42 weeks.ResultsAn inclusion rate of 21.4% (203/950) was achieved; nearly half of the participants were nurses. During the study, professionals were active in 448 patient records; female professionals were prevalent. In the patient records, 3 types of actions (care activities, emailing, and process activities) were registered. Most activities occurred in the multidisciplinary records (mean 12.2), which had twice the number of activities of monodisciplinary records (6.35), and solo records had a mean of 3.43 activities. Most activities were care activities (mean 9.14), emailing had a mean of 0.89 activities, and process activities had a mean of 0.29.ConclusionsAn e-communication tool (Congredi) was usable for improving multidisciplinary communication among professionals. It even seemed to yield results for 40% of the professionals who used the e-care plan on their own. The content of the tool provided an active communication practice, with significant increases observed in the actions that must be shared for the effective coordination of care.

Keys to success of a community of clinical practice in primary care: a qualitative evaluation of the ECOPIH project

“…CoPs provide a useful model for knowledge management as well as a mechanism that facilitates and promotes a new way of working and learning based on collaborative working and the use of collective intelligence [ 55 ]. They can be especially useful in PC, where flexibility and constant coordination are key aspects of caring for patients with significant multimorbidity [ 56 , 57 ].…”

The Association Between Willingness of Frontline Care Providers’ to Adaptively Use Telehealth Technology and Virtual Service Performance in Provider-to-Provider Communication: Quantitative Study

“…In the telehealth context, the adaptive use of telehealth technology is also expected, as health stakeholders increasingly use multiple technologies to communicate virtually with one another for care management beyond office visits. For example, care providers use personal messaging apps (eg, Whatsapp) and social network sites [11] to moderate communications between patients and care providers in addition to the designated telehealth technologies [7,38]. Hence, care providers’ adequate selection and use of other communication technologies may change the outcomes of telehealth services.…”

“…Prior studies on information technology use have documented the importance of personal characteristics that help users experiment with and control new technology based on their beliefs and experience. When IT users communicate with others online, in general, and when they act as meeting facilitators in a virtual meeting, in particular, the user who presides over the meeting becomes more important, because individual characteristics such as technology-based skills, capabilities, and level of experience [55] affect the success of online meetings and meeting members’ use of technologies [11,38]. Given that care providers need to facilitate virtual communication with specialists, these users’ characteristics and beliefs about the use of telehealth and relevant technologies simultaneously help to predict the online communication outcome, which is virtual service performance in this study.…”

Physician and Pharmacist Medication Decision-Making in the Time of Electronic Health Records: Mixed-Methods Study

“…Our findings on communication, information, and process mirrored Bardet et al’s meta-model on physician and community pharmacist collaboration [ 36 ]; they identified that early on in a collaboration, key elements include trustworthiness and clarity around roles. Physicians and pharmacists also need to develop an interdependence; establish interest, skills, and positive perceptions; have clear expectations; and build a relationship that is grounded in trust [ 37 , 38 ]. Open and bidirectional communication is also important [ 36 ].…”