Abstrait

Assessment of telemedicine by physicians at Prince Sultan Military Medical City.

Haifaa Al Nasser

Background and Purpose: Telemedicine is the remote diagnosis and treatment of patients by means of telecommunications technology. The perception of physicians’ determination on telemedicine, regarding its effectiveness, accessibility, and barriers that are challenging to them and their patients, was evaluated by employing these parameters for telemedicine application in Prince Sultan Military Medical City. Methods: Telemedicine was assessed by using a welldesigned questionnaire which, was distributed during April 2015. 101 physicians belonging to 24 departments were involved. Results: Three quarters who were positively convenient and satisfied supported TMC effectiveness parameters. Similar records were observed in response to Accessibility services, Barriers and challenges but, felt technical, organizational, communicational and cultural difficulties. Demographic variables were significantly (p ≤ 0.018, p ≤ 0.000, p ≤ 0.021, p ≤ 0.000, p ≤ 0.033 and p ≤ 0.027) associated with TM quality and traditional care, patients more satisfied by TM, overall quality rate of TM, services access enhanced in TM, patient perception difficulties during TM and communication difficulties during tm with age, respectively; significantly (p ≤ 0.009, p ≤ 0.021, p ≤ 0.000 and p ≤ 0.027) associated with TM allows prompt intervention, overall quality rate of tm, services access enhanced in tm and experience communication difficulties during tm with gender, respectively; significantly (p ≤ 0.038, p ≤ 0.004, p ≤ 0.045 and p ≤ 0.001) associated with TM allows prompt intervention, TM provides psychological support, TM accepted by patients and time saving accessibility with the degree origin, respectively whilst, significantly (p ≤ 0.007, p ≤ 0.007, p ≤ 0.003, p ≤ 0.002, p ≤ 0.035, p ≤ 0.048 and p ≤ 0.034) associated with technical quality of TM consultation, TM comfortability, TM allows prompt intervention, TM provides psychological support, TM accepted by patients, services access enhanced in TM and patients concerns with privacy and security with residency training, respectively. Conclusion: Although telemedicine is promising and Ministry of Health allocated a huge budget, but the practicing physicians still feel some drawbacks with concerning patients, regarding aspects of services and qualities, efficiency and barriers concerning full implementation measures