Exploring Health Professionals’ Perceptions on Health-ID, an Electronic Integrated Patient Progress Documentation System: A Qualitative Study in Indonesia

BACKGROUND: Continuum of care relies on seamless communication across health professionals. Paper-based integrated patient care documentation is, therefore, obligated in hospitals in Indonesia to standardize information among health providers. However, there are several pitfalls with paper-based documentation. Reported issues regarding time, workload, incomplete patient charts, and delayed verification were seen as obstacles in the implementation of integrated patient progress notes. In an effort to tackle the issues, Health-ID (Health-Integrated Documentation) software was developed to resolve and organize health documentation to break communication boundaries between health professionals. AIM: This study was part of a system evaluation of the software program after its implementation in a hospital in Indonesia. The aim was to explore health professionals’ perceptions of Health-ID. METHODS: A qualitative study involving in-depth face-to-face interviews with five key informants and two focus group discussions was conducted. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. RESULTS: Thematic analyses of the interviews and focus group discussion revealed several main themes for each of the two topics that were explored in the discussions and interviews: (1) Perceptions on the use of Health-ID: innovative intervention; useful tool. (2) Perceived barriers to the implementation of the Health-ID: workload; organizational support; millennial gaps. CONCLUSION: The study revealed the potential of the Health-ID to generate effective communication and collaboration among health professions. Reported benefits were as follows: integrating technology in patient progress documentation has been shown to ease the work of health professionals, providing fast and reliable information on patient care updates.