Assignment Introduction Of Explore Healthcare Professionals’ Perceptions And Experiences About Opportunities For Leveraging Health Information Technology

This qualitative case study aims to explore healthcare professionals’ perceptions and experiences about opportunities for leveraging health information technology (IT), specifically mobile health apps (MHAs) to engage patients with diabetes. This research sets itself apart from other studies in that it looks to explore the perceptions and experiences of healthcare professionals within the Kuwait context. Currently, the term “diabetes self-management” (DSM) is heavily used. According to the American Diabetes Association:

‘People with diabetes should receive medical care from a physician-coordinated team. Such a team may include but is not limited to physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, dietitians, pharmacists, and mental health professionals with expertise and a special interest in diabetes. It is essential in this collaborative and integrated team approach that individuals with diabetes assume an active role in their care’.(1)

According to the American Association of Diabetes Educators, diabetes self-management education (DSME) can be defined as a continuous process of facilitating knowledge and skills required for DSM, given by medical professionals (2). DSME aims to encourage informed decision making and active collaboration with diabetes team members, self-care behaviors, problem-solving and improves clinical outcomes, health status, and quality of life (2).

Evidence suggests that chronic diseases such as diabetes are by large self-managed by the patients or with help from their family with usually minimal input from healthcare professionals (3). Current trends in health focus on patient empowerment using self-management (SM) where SM can be defined as one's capability for managing symptoms, treatment, and lifestyle while living with a chronic disease (4), and this reflects the emphasis on preventative methods and healthcare education rather than focusing on disease treatments (3). Thus, positively affecting the management of diabetes by making healthcare professionals more aware of how to empower patients and their DSM might be viewed as an essential concept. Medical research has shown that reconceptualization of terminology from “compliance” to “adherence” can improve patients’ health where the term “compliance” suggests a restricted medical-centered model of behaviour while with “adherence,” patients have more control in detailing their management. (5) Although the change of terminology is minor, it reflects a crucial, paradigmatic shift for thinking about the delivery of medical care (5).

1.1. Research Aims to explore healthcare professionals’ perceptions and experiences about opportunities for leveraging health information technology

From the perspectives of healthcare professionals’ caring for patients with diabetes, this research is to: 

      i.        Uncover the challenges of using MHAs to empower patients with diabetes.

     ii.        Explore the opportunities of using MHAs and their potential for DSM.

    iii.        Suggest improvements needed to make MHAs better, more engaging, and useful to the patients and healthcare professionals. 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the number of adult patients with diabetes increased to 422 million in 2014 from 108 million in 1980 and the prevalence among adults above the age of 18 years has increased from 4.7 percent to 8.5 percent in the same period (6). Thus, the incidence of diabetes is growing at a rapid pace in middle and low-income countries. In these countries, diabetes is the primary reason for complications like nephropathies, blindness, cardiovascular disease, and diabetic foot complications. In 2016, it was estimated that 1.6 million people died directly linked to diabetes (6). Health Information Technology (IT) has shown to play a significant role in improving the quality of healthcare. This type of IT and especially MHAs have overcome many geographical and organizational barriers with low and affordable costs (7). MHAs have significantly reduced the adverse events and disease burden linked to the spread of poverty (8).

The care and management for diabetes primarily rely on patients taking an active role in the management of their condition. Over time, DSME can enable patients to become their own experts (9). However, to reach this level of controlling their blood glucose and reducing diabetes-related complications, patients need professional support (9-12).

The role of DSM has also been emphasized via the in-country cooperation strategy for the WHO and Kuwait 2012-2016, stating the collaborative agenda aims to promote the concept of SM (13). In self-care education, IT has opened new paths for communication between the patient and his care team (14, 15). Although many healthcare professionals recognize the role of technology in medical care, its adoption, on the other hand, has been slow (16). Few healthcare professionals are familiar with the role of rapidly evolving MHAs in healthcare. For some, it is an irritating concept of patients having easy access to electronic medical data (14, 15, 17). The reasons for this might be the lack of time, training, and age of the healthcare professionals (18, 19). In contrast, some healthcare professionals find the technology useful as it saves time (20, 21).  Although many studies have highlighted the importance of IT and MHAs in DSM, little evidence is available about the healthcare professionals' perspectives in their unique context in Kuwait. Specifically, this study will focus on healthcare professionals’ perception of the enablers and barriers of MHAs in healthcare.

This case study explores the perception and experiences of physicians and nurses related to the opportunities for leveraging MHAs to engage patients with DSM. A qualitative approach was thought best in this case as the investigator looks to understand the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of the research participants. This research focuses on the in-depth understanding of specific individuals’ perceptions of MHAs rather than studying the general consensus of a larger population of healthcare professionals (22). This may be useful because it might help in uncovering rich and context-specific findings. It is hoped that this research will aid in providing a better understanding of the perceptions of healthcare professionals to use MHAs for DSM and assist them in incorporating them into their workflows.

In taking this approach the aim is to help healthcare and any related organizations gain insight into the attitudes, behaviours, and health practices of the healthcare professionals about the MHAs in practice. This study also intends to highlight the barriers faced by healthcare professionals in educating patients about DSM. Therefore, the outcome of this study might encourage healthcare organizations and their partners to adopt relevant technology to enable patients in their DSM with the goal of improving patients’ health and reducing long-term complications. Ultimately, this may affect the financial burden on healthcare at a later stage.

1.2. Structure of the Dissertation   of explore healthcare professionals’ perceptions and experiences about opportunities for leveraging health information technology

This dissertation is organized as follows: Chapter 2 discusses the literature relevant to this area of research. Chapter 3 describes, in detail, the research approach to this study. In Chapter 4, the findings are presented. In Chapter 5, the discussion of the results is presented considering the current evidence. The study concludes in Chapter 6 with recommendations that can help inform healthcare organizations and professionals on the current status-quo of MHA adoption as well as future approaches should be considered.