Utveckling av vården genom eHälsa
En kvalitativ studie av hur ?min journal på nätet? formar framtidens vård
Today is what you could call a golden age for technological development in health care. Technology is given a bigger role in healthcare and serves not only as a support for health professionals in their daily work but also as a tool for the patient. With the help of eHealth services, patients are becoming more involved in their own care. This improves patient?s knowledge about their health, which in turn contributes to higher motivation to perform self-care. Since the autumn of 2012, health records online have been implemented in certain counties through an eHealth application named "my online health record?. This application will soon be launched nationwide in Sweden. In this study we are examining how this technological progress can be understood from a number of actors' perspectives, who have an interest in the situation. We have investigated this by performing a qualitative study in which we interviewed respondents from three different professions in order to find out their attitude towards the application. The result from the data collection shows a development towards a greater involvement of patients in their care process. Many doctors see this as a positive thing since it increases patient safety and improves the quality of the meeting between doctor and patient. There is a risk, however, of creating a digital gap between certain patients. A large group of patients have a high education, good skills within IT and therefore the ability to assimilate the information, however there?s a minority whom has no internet access or knowledge to assimilate the information in a good way. This creates a gap between these patient groups, where the first group will receive better care and the later gets left out of the system. In conclusion, the study has shown that this ongoing trend cannot be stopped, patients will demand access to more and more information in a more accessible way.