Huygens, M.W.J., Swinkels, I.C.S., Verheij, R.A. et al. (3 more authors) (2018) Understanding the use of email consultation in primary care using a retrospective observational study with data of Dutch electronic health records. BMJ Open, 8 (1). e019233. ISSN 2044-6055
Abstract
OBJECTIVES:
It is unclear why the use of email consultation is not more widespread in Dutch general practice, particularly because, since 2006, its costs can be reimbursed. To encourage further implementation, it is needed to understand the current use of email consultations. This study aims to understand the use of email consultation by different patient groups, compared with other general practice (GP) consultations.
SETTING:
For this retrospective observational study, we used Dutch routine electronic health record data obtained from NIVEL Primary Care Database for the years 2010 and 2014. PARTICIPANTS: 200 general practices were included in 2010 (734 122 registered patients) and 434 in 2014 (1 630 386 registered patients).
PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURES:
The number and percentage of email consultations and patient characteristics (age, gender, neighbourhood socioeconomic status and diagnoses) of email consultation users were investigated and compared with those who had a telephone or face-to-face consultation. General practice characteristics were also taken into account. RESULTS: 32.0% of the Dutch general practices had at least one email consultation in 2010, rising to 52.8% in 2014. In 2014, only 0.7% of the GP consultations were by email (the others comprised home visits, telephone and face-to-face consultations). Its use highly varied among general practices. Most email consultations were done for psychological (14.7%); endocrine, metabolic and nutritional (10.9%); and circulatory (10.7%) problems. These diagnosis categories appeared less frequently in telephone and face-to-face consultations. Patients who had an email consultation were older than patients who had a telephone or face-to-face consultation. In contrast, patients with diabetes who had an email consultation were younger.
CONCLUSION:
Even though email consultation was done in half the general practices in the Netherlands in 2014, the actual use of it is extremely low. Patients who had an email consultation differ from those who had a telephone or face-to-face consultation. In addition, the use of email consultation by patients is dependent on its provision by GPs.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article). All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted. This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ |
Keywords: | email-consultation; patient; primary care |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > School of Health and Related Research (Sheffield) > ScHARR - Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 05 Feb 2018 13:05 |
Last Modified: | 15 Mar 2024 12:39 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | BMJ Publishing Group |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-019233 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:127110 |