Belgian KCE published a report on drivers and barriers for eHealth adoption in primary care

On January 19, 2021, Belgian Health Care Knowledge Center (KCE) published a health services research report "Barriers and facilitators for eHealth adoption by general practitioners”.

The research was based on a systematic literature review and aimed to provide an insight into the factors contributing to eHealth uptake among Belgian GPs. The results of the report should be taken into account by public authorities in the process of implementation of eHealth in primary care. In the report, KCE determined problems, drivers, and barriers to the use of eHealth services, ideas for improvement, and the impact of COVID-19 on eHealth use.

Findings from the research show that there is a wide range of factors contributing to the uptake of eHealth technology by healthcare professionals. These factors range from quality of the eHealth technology, use and user satisfaction, net benefits, individual, organizational, and implementation characteristics to country-specific factors (such as governance, standards, funding, or trends). This review identified fundamental factors for eHealth adoption which should be considered in future implementations and evaluations, which are interoperability, security and the ease of use of the new eHealth system; effect on the patient-provider relationship, net costs; the presence of "ambassadors", computer literacy and attitude towards innovation/technology of the healthcare professionals, practice characteristics, availability of training and involvement of end-users during the implementation, and the existence of incentive programs for taking up eHealth technology. The authors identified the following barriers for eHealth adoption: feeling that eHealth is a loss of time, worries about data security, and dependence on external factors as ICT, information overload.

The full details in English can be found here.

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