Abstract

This study aimed to identify relevant topics for the development of an efficient eHealth service for elderly people with balance disorders and risk of falling, based on input from physicians providing healthcare to this patient group. In the quantitative part of the study, an open multiple-choice questionnaire was made available on the website of the Portuguese General Medical Council to assess the satisfaction with electronic medical records regarding clinical data available, the time needed to retrieve data and the usefulness of the data. Of the 118 participants, 55% were dissatisfied/very dissatisfied with data availability and 61% with the time spent to access and update data related to the focused patient group. Despite this negative experience, 76% considered future e-Health solutions as pertinent/very pertinent. Subsequently, these findings were further explored with eight semi-structured interviews. The physicians confirmed the reported dissatisfactions and pointed out the lack of comprehensive data and system interoperability as serious problems, causing inefficient health services with an overlap of emergency visits and uncoordinated diagnostics and treatment. In addition, they discussed the importance of camera and audio monitoring to add significant value. Our results indicate considerable potential for e-Health solutions, but substantial improvements are crucial to achieving such future solutions.

Highlights

  • The incomplete or not understandable information about medical consultations and the lack of integration of clinical data between the health units have contributed to the misuse of healthcare provisions by elderly people, with multiple consultations, repeated prescriptions, polypharmacy and increasing costs that could be minimized with an appropriate digital service

  • Despite significant obstacles in existing digital solutions, 76% of the Portuguese physicians included in this study considered future e-Health services as highly relevant for complementary healthcare for elderly people with balance disorders and the risk of falling

  • The use of eHealth services comprised of digital technologies such as cameras, sensors and audio monitoring may reinforce such solutions

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Summary

Introduction

The prevalence of chronic diseases, comorbidities, disabilities and falls have increased with aging [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. There are many causes for elderly people’s falls to happen, including age, environmental factors, inappropriate clothing and shoes, risky behavior, medications, and balance disorders [1,7,8,9]. Falls represent an important public health problem, being the main cause of accidental death in the population over 65 years of age [1,8,9,10].

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