Survey: Digitization gives GPs more to do

The challenge of digitalization is not the lack of IT expertise or the difficulty of using the systems. Rather, it is quite the opposite.

And one appears Survey on e-health among healthcare workersWhich was implemented by Kantar Company on behalf of the E-Health Directorate. This survey is a follow-up to the health care worker survey starting in 2022.

It has become very easy to contact your GP directly. The communication is also not filtered through the doctor’s secretary, as is the case when calling medical centers. At the same time, access to health information has become easier, which means that doctors feel they spend more time keeping records, so that patients can understand what is written in the records.

Unnecessary requests

In the Kantar report, they quoted several doctors interviewed in the survey. Unnecessary contacts are highlighted there.

– People are communicating about everything, and sometimes they just need a little reassurance that you are doing the right thing by staying at home, says one GP in the survey.

– Health secretaries used to do that, but now I spend time writing, for example, “It's normal to have a fever, go and lie under the covers and call in three days if it's not gone,” he continues. the doctor.

Another says he receives requests for information that is already available in the systems.

Not just patients

In addition to requests from patients, dialogue with collaboration partners and referrals are also becoming more time-consuming. One GP in the survey said he spends an hour or two more on digital orders per week now than in the past. This is confirmed by the nurses interviewed in the survey, by admitting that they sometimes contact GPs more than necessary.

Doctors are demanding solutions to prioritize patients. Some GPs participating in the survey hope they can get solutions using artificial intelligence (AI) that help GPs filter out unnecessary requests. They also suggest using AI solutions to answer simple queries and help patients choose the appropriate counseling method.