Characteristics of Citizens and Their Use of Teleconsultations in Primary Care in the Catalan Public Health System Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Retrospective Descriptive Cross-sectional Study.

Autor: Solans O; Health Department, Catalan Ministry of Health, Barcelona, Spain.; Digitalization for the Sustainability of the Healthcare System, Sistema de Salut de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain., Vidal-Alaball J; Health Promotion in Rural Areas Research Group, Gerència Territorial de la Catalunya Central, Institut Català de la Salut, Sant Fruitós de Bages, Spain.; Unitat de Suport a la Recerca de la Catalunya Central, Fundació Institut Universitari per a la Recerca a l'Atenció Primària de Salut Jordi Gol i Gurina, Sant Fruitós de Bages, Spain.; Faculty of Medicine, University of Vic - Central University of Catalonia, Vic, Spain., Roig Cabo P; Northern Metropolitan Primary Care Directorate, Institut Català de la Salut, Badalona, Spain., Mora N; Primary Care Services Information Systems, Institut Català de la Salut, Barcelona, Spain., Coma E; Primary Care Services Information Systems, Institut Català de la Salut, Barcelona, Spain., Bonet Simó JM; Northern Metropolitan Primary Care Directorate, Institut Català de la Salut, Badalona, Spain., Hermosilla Pérez E; Primary Care Services Information Systems, Institut Català de la Salut, Barcelona, Spain.; Jordi Gol i Gurina Primary Health Care Research Institute Foundation, Barcelona, Spain., Saigí-Rubió F; Faculty of Health Sciences, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain.; Interdisciplinary Research Group on ICTs, Barcelona, Spain., Olmos Domínguez C; Health Department, Catalan Ministry of Health, Barcelona, Spain., Piera-Jiménez J; Digitalization for the Sustainability of the Healthcare System, Sistema de Salut de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain.; Servei Català de la Salut, Barcelona, Spain.; Open Evidence Research Group, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain., Abizanda González M; Health Department, eHealth Unit, Barcelona, Spain.; Pere Virgili Health Park, Primary Care Management Control, Barcelona, Spain., López Seguí F; Northern Metropolitan Primary Care Directorate, Institut Català de la Salut, Badalona, Spain.; Centre de Recerca en Economia i Salut, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Journal of medical Internet research [J Med Internet Res] 2021 May 27; Vol. 23 (5), pp. e28629. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 May 27.
DOI: 10.2196/28629
Abstrakt: Background: eConsulta-that is, asynchronous, two-way teleconsultation in primary care-is one of the most important telemedicine developments in the Catalan public health system, a service that has been heavily boosted by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is vital to know the characteristics of its users in order to be able to meet their needs and understand the coverage of this service in a context where there is reduced accessibility to the health system.
Objective: This study aims to analyze the profile of the citizens who use the eConsulta tool and the reasons for their use, as well as to gain an understanding of the elements that characterize their decision to use it while distinguishing between those who used it before and those who have used it since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods: A descriptive, observational study based on administrative data was performed. This study differentiates between the COVID-19 pandemic era and the period preceding it, considering the day the state of emergency was declared in Spain (ie, March 12, 2020) as the cut-off point. It also differentiates between eConsulta users who send messages and those who only receive them.
Results: During the pandemic, the number of unique users of this teleconsultation service had almost tripled, with up to 33.10 visits per 1000 inhabitants per month reported in the first three months. For the two user profiles analyzed, most users since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak were predominantly female, systematically younger, more actively employed, and with less complex pathologies. Furthermore, eConsulta users received more messages proactively from the health professionals. There was also a relative decrease in the number of conversations initiated by higher-income urban users and an increase in conversations initiated by users in rural areas.
Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic has helped to generalize the use of telemedicine as a tool to compensate, to some extent, for the decline in face-to-face visits, especially among younger citizens in Catalonia. Telemedicine has made it possible to maintain contact between citizens and the health care system in the context of maximum complexity.
(©Oscar Solans, Josep Vidal-Alaball, Pasqual Roig Cabo, Núria Mora, Ermengol Coma, Josep Maria Bonet Simó, Eduardo Hermosilla Pérez, Francesc Saigí-Rubió, Carmen Olmos Domínguez, Jordi Piera-Jiménez, Mercè Abizanda González, Francesc López Seguí. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 27.05.2021.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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