A framework for digital health policy: insights from virtual primary care systems across five nations

Srivastava, Divya ORCID: 0000-0001-5135-3592, Van kessel, Robin, Delgrange, Marine ORCID: 0000-0001-5742-6027, Cherla, Avi, Sood, Harpreet and Mossialos, Elias ORCID: 0000-0001-8664-9297 (2023) A framework for digital health policy: insights from virtual primary care systems across five nations. PLOS Digital Health, 2 (11). e0000382. ISSN 2767-3170

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Abstract

Digital health technologies used in primary care, referred to as, virtual primary care, allow patients to interact with primary healthcare professionals remotely though the current iteration of virtual primary care may also come with several unintended consequences, such as accessibility barriers and cream skimming. The World Health Organization (WHO) has a well-established framework to understand the functional components of health systems. However, the existing building blocks framework does not sufficiently account for the disruptive and multi-modal impact of digital transformations. In this review, we aimed to develop the first iteration of this updated framework by reviewing the deployment of virtual primary care systems in five leading countries: Canada, Finland, Germany and Sweden and the United Kingdom (England). We found that all five countries have taken different approaches with the deployment of virtual primary care, yet seven common themes were highlighted across countries: (1) stated policy objectives, (2) regulation and governance, (3) financing and reimbursement, (4) delivery and integration, (5) workforce training and support, (6) IT systems and data sharing, and (7) the extent of patient involvement in the virtual primary care system. The conceptual framework that was derived from these findings offers a set of guiding principles that can facilitate the assessment of virtual primary care in health system settings.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://journals.plos.org/digitalhealth/
Additional Information:	© 2023 The Authors
Divisions:	Health Policy Social Policy Personal Social Services Research Unit
Subjects:	R Medicine > R Medicine (General) R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine
Date Deposited:	14 Mar 2024 15:33
Last Modified:	15 Mar 2024 09:03
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/122381

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