Understanding inherent influencing factors to digital health adoption in general practices through a mixed-methods analysis

Lisa Weik; Leonard Fehring; Achim Mortsiefer; Sven Meister

doi:10.1038/s41746-024-01049-0

Understanding inherent influencing factors to digital health adoption in general practices through a mixed-methods analysis

NPJ Digit Med. 2024 Feb 27;7(1):47. doi: 10.1038/s41746-024-01049-0.

Authors

Lisa Weik¹, Leonard Fehring^{2

3}, Achim Mortsiefer⁴, Sven Meister^{5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Health Care Informatics, Faculty of Health, School of Medicine, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany.
² Helios University Hospital Wuppertal, Department of Gastroenterology, Witten/Herdecke University, Wuppertal, Germany.
³ Faculty of Health, School of Medicine, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany.
⁴ General Practice II and Patient-Centredness in Primary Care, Institute of General Practice and Primary Care, Faculty of Health, School of Medicine, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany.
⁵ Health Care Informatics, Faculty of Health, School of Medicine, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany. sven.meister@uni-wh.de.
⁶ Department Healthcare, Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering ISST, Dortmund, Germany. sven.meister@uni-wh.de.

Abstract

Extensive research has shown the potential value of digital health solutions and highlighted the importance of clinicians' adoption. As general practitioners (GPs) are patients' first point of contact, understanding influencing factors to their digital health adoption is especially important to derive personalized practical recommendations. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study broadly identifies adoption barriers and potential improvement strategies in general practices, including the impact of GPs' inherent characteristics - especially their personality - on digital health adoption. Results of our online survey with 216 GPs reveal moderate overall barriers on a 5-point Likert-type scale, with required workflow adjustments (M = 4.13, SD = 0.93), inadequate reimbursement (M = 4.02, SD = 1.02), and high training effort (M = 3.87, SD = 1.01) as substantial barriers. Improvement strategies are considered important overall, with respondents especially wishing for improved interoperability (M = 4.38, SD = 0.81), continued technical support (M = 4.33, SD = 0.91), and improved usability (M = 4.20, SD = 0.88). In our regression model, practice-related characteristics, the expected future digital health usage, GPs' digital affinity, several personality traits, and digital maturity are significant predictors of the perceived strength of barriers. For the perceived importance of improvement strategies, only demographics and usage-related variables are significant predictors. This study provides strong evidence for the impact of GPs' inherent characteristics on barriers and improvement strategies. Our findings highlight the need for comprehensive approaches integrating personal and emotional elements to make digitization in practices more engaging, tangible, and applicable.