Factors Associated With The Willingness To Use Of Telemedicine Applications For Healthcare Delivery Among Health Providers At The Korle Bu Teaching Hospital

Abstract

Background: Telemedicine is gradually becoming a valid value addition to health care delivery. It provides an assortment of applications in understanding patient care, public health, education, and research. Telemedicine have been explored extensible in the developed counties for some time now, but little is known of its application and use for remote health care provision in developing countries, particularly in Ghana Aim: The study assessed providers’ perception and willingness to use telemedicine for healthcare services at the Korle Bu Teaching hospital. Method: The study employed a cross-sectional design using quantitative approach to gather and analyze the data. The study interviewed 392 doctors, midwives, nurses and laboratory personnel. using self- administered questionnaires between January and March 2022. Participants were recruited using simple random sampling technique. The data was collected and analysed using a statistical software, STATA version 16. Descriptive statistics was presented in tables and graphs. Chi square test and logistic regression analysis was applied to determine the association between the dependent and independent variables. A level of significance was accepted at p>0.05 at 95% confidence interval. Results: The study involved 392 participants of which 189 were males and 198 were females, while 5 did not disclose their gender. Approximately, 338 health professionals including: 144 (42.60%) doctors, 69(20.41%) midwives and 104 (30.77%) nurses had access and use computer at workplace. About 141 (40.99%) doctors, 75 (21.80%) midwifes, and 110 (31.98%) nurses have personal computer (p-value=0.00). Most of the time, more than 80 (35%) medical doctors and about 40 (18.96%) midwifes, and 71 (33.65%) nurses search, upload or download health information online. About 115 (37%) doctors, 61 (19%) midwifes and 112 (36%) of nurses will want to use telemedicine tools at their facility. The study recorded that approximately 95% (371) of the study participants believe that telemedicine is a viable approach for health care delivery.

About 112 (33.04%) doctors, 76(22.42) midwifes, 126(37.17%) nurses agree telemedicine system can save efforts (p-value=0.000). Close to 79.1% of participants were willing and 20.1% were not willing to use telemedicine application. The participants were willing to communicate with fellow colleagues using any of the telemedicine tools such as email (56%), WhatsApp (85%), Facebook (15%) or face-to-face interaction (92%). Participants were willing to communicate with patients using at least one of the telemedicine tools, phone calls (87%) or WhatsApp messages (49%). Participants from maternity department had a lower odd of willingness to use telemedicine (0.485; p-value= 0.083) compared to child health department. Co-habiting participants had higher odds of willingness to use (2.573; p-value= 0.047) Muslim participants recorded an odds ratio= 1.912 and p-value= 0.092 indicating they are more likely to be willing to use telemedicine. Participants who were not concerned about legal issues recordeda higher odd (3.096; p-value<0.000). Conclusion: The study concluded that health professionals; clinicians, midwives, nurses and laboratory personnel of the Korle Bu teaching hospital had positive perception (95%) regarding use of telemedicine. Approximately 79.1% of participants were willing to use telemedicine applications tools for health care delivery. Most of the professionals have access and use electronic devices such as computer and smartphones, be it at work or personally. Further, participants’ department, marital status, religion and legal issues of concern were significantly associated with providers’ willingness to use telemedicine.