Building consensus about eHealth in Slovene primary health care: Delphi study

Rade J Iljaž,Matic Meglič,Igor Švab

doi:10.1186/1472-6947-11-25

Rade J Iljaž, Matic Meglič + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6947-11-25

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Abstract

BackgroundSlovenia's national eHealth strategy aims to develop an efficient, flexible and modern health care informatics framework that would be comparable to the most successful EU countries. To achieve this goal, the gap between availability and usage of information and communication technology by primary care physicians needs to be reduced.As recent efforts show, consensus on information and communication technology purpose and usage in primary care needs to be established before any national information and communication technology solutions are developed.The aim of this study was to identify the most appropriate measures in implementation of Slovene national eHealth strategy and to suggest an appropriate model for success by using the three round Delphi study.MethodsAn e-mail based, three-round Delphi study was undertaken to achieve consensus from a selected sample of nationally recognized experts from the fields of primary health care and medical informatics. The aim of this study was to identify the most appropriate measures and key obstacles in implementation of eHealth in Slovene primary health care by using the Delphi study.ResultsHigh levels of consensus on the majority of suggested measures were achieved among all study participants, as well as between the subgroups of experts from primary health care and medical informatics. All aims of the three-round Delphi study on eHealth implementation in Slovenian primary health care were achieved.ConclusionsThe three round decision Delphi process has proven to be effective for developing outcomes, ranking key priorities in primary care eHealth development, and achieving consensus among the most influential experts in that field. This consensus is an important contribution to future national eHealth strategies in the field of primary health care.

Highlights

Slovenia’s national eHealth strategy aims to develop an efficient, flexible and modern health care informatics framework that would be comparable to the most successful European Union (EU) countries
Thirteen primary health care (PHC) professionals and an equal number of medical informatics experts were invited to participate in the survey
Twenty-four of those participated in first round: 13 were PHC physicians and 11 were key stakeholders in the field of Slovenian medical informatics

Summary

Introduction

Slovenia’s national eHealth strategy aims to develop an efficient, flexible and modern health care informatics framework that would be comparable to the most successful EU countries. To achieve this goal, the gap between availability and usage of information and communication technology by primary care physicians needs to be reduced. At the end of 2007 the majority of primary health care (PHC) practices in the EU used computers and almost 70% of all practices had internet connection. Taking into account other eHealth development parameters (use of broadband internet, practice website, electronic storage and transfer of administrative patient data, electronic connection to other health actors etc.), Slovenia is comparable to many other EU countries [7]

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