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| Frequency | Percentage |
|
Subtheme 1: patterns of usage of telemedicine services | | |
Do you have any telemedicine services in your institution? | | |
Yes | 79 | 50.3% |
For how long have you used telemedicine in delivering patient care? | | |
Less than 5 years | 66 | 83.5% |
Between 5 and 10 years | 9 | 11.4% |
More than 10 years | 4 | 5.1% |
What percentage of time do you spend providing care to patients via telemedicine? | | |
Less than 25% | 65 | 82.3% |
25-49% | 10 | 12.7% |
50-74% | 3 | 3.8% |
More than 75% | 1 | 1.3% |
Subtheme 2: utilization of telemedicine | | |
For diagnosis and treatment of patients | 39 | 51% |
Chronic disease management | 32 | 42% |
Emergency care of patients | 12 | 16% |
The physician-to-physician consults | 39 | 51% |
Behavioural services | 4 | 5% |
Critical care services | 4 | 5% |
Others | 18 | 23% |
Total | 148 | 100% |
Subtheme 3: forms of telemedicine in use | | |
Real-time telemedicine—e.g., use of live video consultations | 28 | 37% |
Remote patient monitoring (monitoring of patients outside of conventional clinical settings) | 16 | 21% |
Archived and uploaded images or text transmission to be reviewed by the doctor | 54 | 71% |
Total | 98 | 100% |
Subtheme 4: barriers to telemedicine | | |
Inadequate ICT infrastructures | 64 | 80% |
Cultural resistance by users and providers | 47 | 60% |
Costly to set up and manage | 42 | 53% |
A lack of skills among patients | 41 | 52% |
Privacy concerns | 32 | 41% |
A lack of skills among care providers | 31 | 39% |
Inadequate funding | 28 | 35% |
An inadequate legislative framework | 26 | 33% |
Others | 4 | 5% |
Subtheme 5: ways to improve uptake of telemedicine | | |
Approve the use of insurance payments for telemedicine services | 54 | 69.2% |
Networking with more telemedicine users | 55 | 69.6% |
Improve audio/video quality | 46 | 58.2% |
Improve technical issues and bugs | 40 | 50.6% |
Address legal and regulatory concerns | 48 | 60.8% |
Address security concerns | 39 | 49.4% |
Make it easier to use | 39 | 49.4% |
Others | 1 | 1.3% |
Subtheme 6: impact of COVID-19 on the uptake of telemedicine | | |
Did the 2020 coronavirus pandemic increase the uptake of telemedicine services in your facility? | | |
No | 8 | 10.1% |
Not sure | 5 | 6.3% |
Yes | 66 | 83.5% |
By what margin did your use of telemedicine services increase during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic? | | |
10-49% | 48 | 73.8% |
50-99% | 17 | 26.2% |
Subtheme 7: potential to use telemedicine once available | | |
If given the opportunity, will you consider using telemedicine to provide healthcare services to your patients? | | |
Not sure | 4 | 5.1% |
Yes | 74 | 94.9% |
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