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Care relationships at stake? Home healthcare professionals’ experiences with digital medicine dispensers – a qualitative study

BACKGROUND: Although digital technologies can mitigate the burdens of home healthcare services caused by an ageing population that lives at home longer with complex health problems, research on the impacts and consequences of digitalised remote communication between patients and caregivers is lackin...

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Autores principales: Nakrem, Sigrid, Solbjør, Marit, Pettersen, Ida Nilstad, Kleiven, Hanne Hestvik
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5769443/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29334953
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-2835-1
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author Nakrem, Sigrid
Solbjør, Marit
Pettersen, Ida Nilstad
Kleiven, Hanne Hestvik
author_facet Nakrem, Sigrid
Solbjør, Marit
Pettersen, Ida Nilstad
Kleiven, Hanne Hestvik
author_sort Nakrem, Sigrid
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Although digital technologies can mitigate the burdens of home healthcare services caused by an ageing population that lives at home longer with complex health problems, research on the impacts and consequences of digitalised remote communication between patients and caregivers is lacking. The present study explores how home healthcare professionals had experienced the introduction of digital medicine dispensers and their influence on patient-caregiver relationships. METHODS: The multi-case study comprised semi-structured interviews with 21 healthcare professionals whose home healthcare service involved using the digital medicine dispensers. The constant comparative method was used for data analyses. RESULTS: Altogether, interviewed healthcare professionals reported three main technology-related impacts upon their patient-caregiver relationships. First, national and local pressure to increase efficiency had troubled their relationships with patients who suspected that municipalities have sought to lower costs by reducing and digitalising services. Participants reported having to consider such worries when introducing technologies into their services. Second, participants reported a shift towards empowering patients. Digital technology can empower patients who value their independence, whereas safety is more important for other patients. Healthcare professionals needed to ensure that replacing care tasks with technology implies safe and improved care. Third, the safety and quality of digital healthcare services continues to depend upon surveillance and control mechanisms that compensate for less face-to-face monitoring. Participants did not consider the possibility that surveillance exposes information about patients’ everyday lives to be problematic, but to constitute opportunities for adjusting services to meet patients’ needs. CONCLUSIONS: Technologies such as digital medicine dispensers can improve the efficiency of healthcare services and enhance patients’ independence when introduced in a way that empowers patients as well as safeguards trust and service quality. Conversely, the patient-caregiver relationship can suffer if the technology does not meet patients’ needs and fails to offer safe and trustworthy services. Upon introducing technology, home healthcare professionals therefore need to carefully consider the benefits and possible disadvantages of the technology. Ethical implications for both individuals and societies need to be further discussed.
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spelling pubmed-57694432018-01-25 Care relationships at stake? Home healthcare professionals’ experiences with digital medicine dispensers – a qualitative study Nakrem, Sigrid Solbjør, Marit Pettersen, Ida Nilstad Kleiven, Hanne Hestvik BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: Although digital technologies can mitigate the burdens of home healthcare services caused by an ageing population that lives at home longer with complex health problems, research on the impacts and consequences of digitalised remote communication between patients and caregivers is lacking. The present study explores how home healthcare professionals had experienced the introduction of digital medicine dispensers and their influence on patient-caregiver relationships. METHODS: The multi-case study comprised semi-structured interviews with 21 healthcare professionals whose home healthcare service involved using the digital medicine dispensers. The constant comparative method was used for data analyses. RESULTS: Altogether, interviewed healthcare professionals reported three main technology-related impacts upon their patient-caregiver relationships. First, national and local pressure to increase efficiency had troubled their relationships with patients who suspected that municipalities have sought to lower costs by reducing and digitalising services. Participants reported having to consider such worries when introducing technologies into their services. Second, participants reported a shift towards empowering patients. Digital technology can empower patients who value their independence, whereas safety is more important for other patients. Healthcare professionals needed to ensure that replacing care tasks with technology implies safe and improved care. Third, the safety and quality of digital healthcare services continues to depend upon surveillance and control mechanisms that compensate for less face-to-face monitoring. Participants did not consider the possibility that surveillance exposes information about patients’ everyday lives to be problematic, but to constitute opportunities for adjusting services to meet patients’ needs. CONCLUSIONS: Technologies such as digital medicine dispensers can improve the efficiency of healthcare services and enhance patients’ independence when introduced in a way that empowers patients as well as safeguards trust and service quality. Conversely, the patient-caregiver relationship can suffer if the technology does not meet patients’ needs and fails to offer safe and trustworthy services. Upon introducing technology, home healthcare professionals therefore need to carefully consider the benefits and possible disadvantages of the technology. Ethical implications for both individuals and societies need to be further discussed. BioMed Central 2018-01-15 /pmc/articles/PMC5769443/ /pubmed/29334953 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-2835-1 Text en © The Author(s). 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Nakrem, Sigrid
Solbjør, Marit
Pettersen, Ida Nilstad
Kleiven, Hanne Hestvik
Care relationships at stake? Home healthcare professionals’ experiences with digital medicine dispensers – a qualitative study
title Care relationships at stake? Home healthcare professionals’ experiences with digital medicine dispensers – a qualitative study
title_full Care relationships at stake? Home healthcare professionals’ experiences with digital medicine dispensers – a qualitative study
title_fullStr Care relationships at stake? Home healthcare professionals’ experiences with digital medicine dispensers – a qualitative study
title_full_unstemmed Care relationships at stake? Home healthcare professionals’ experiences with digital medicine dispensers – a qualitative study
title_short Care relationships at stake? Home healthcare professionals’ experiences with digital medicine dispensers – a qualitative study
title_sort care relationships at stake? home healthcare professionals’ experiences with digital medicine dispensers – a qualitative study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5769443/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29334953
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-2835-1
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