The use of digital occupational health services among employer customers: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Occupational health (OH) service providers, together with their client organizations co-operate in promoting health and work ability. Alongside with the so-called traditional services, more and more digital services are offered by OH service providers. However, little is known how the employer customers experience and use digital OH services. This study evaluates the types of digital OH services employer customers use and how they assess the usefulness and ease of use of these digital services. Furthermore, the aim is to find out factors associated the usefulness and ease of use. To determine these features of usefulness and ease of use of digital services the Technology Acceptance Model was utilized. A cross-sectional, electronic survey was carried out to the members of human resources (HR) and entrepreneur associations between December 2022 and January 2023. The survey was in Finnish. The research material consisted of the employer customers’ answers to the multiple-choice questions of the use, usefulness and ease of use of digital OH services. The data was analyzed by quantitative statistical analysis. A total of 455 respondents took part in the study, comprising 198 representatives of HR professionals and 257 entrepreneurs. Most of the respondents were women (65%) and over 50 years old (61%). HR professionals rated their information and communications technology skills significantly more often good or really good compared to the entrepreneurs, being 92 % and 62 %, respectively. The most frequently utilized digital OH services were the ability to update personnel’s information in the OH patient registry (48.0%) and remote action plan negotiations (37.1%). Less than one-third of the respondents (29.9%) took part in remote work ability negotiations, while approximately one-fifth (20.8%) participated in remote workplace surveys. In general, the HR professionals used digital OH services more frequently and estimate the usefulness and the use of digital OH services more positively compared to the entrepreneurs (p<0.05). The study produced new information of the use and experiences of using digital OH services among the employer customers. The findings can be used to optimize the delivery and effectiveness of digital OH services for all employer customers, especially for the entrepreneurs who seemed be less used to utilize digital services.