Use of information and communication technologies by argentine pediatricians

Abstract

Introduction: There are not data in Argentina about the percentages of use of Information and Communication Technologies by pediatricians yet. Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of the use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) and ElectronicMessaging.Todescribetheperception of advantages and disadvantages. Population and methods: Observational, exploratory, descriptive and transversal study. Five submissions of a self-administered survey were made to the list of partners of the Sociedad Argentina de Pediatría between July and September of 2017. Results:Of14,604partners,3468responseswere received (23.7 %); 2680 were complete (18.4 %). The overall percentage of use of EHR was 44 %. There were advantages: access to information (23.2 %), streamlining work (20.1 %), secure information backup (14.3 %) and availability (11.9 %), calculation of percentiles (11.1 %) and statistics (9.2 %). The perceived disadvantages: technical issues (32 %), fear of information loss (20 %), doubts about legal issues (15.8 %). The use of EHR was going to be implemented by 49.8 % of respondents in the next year. Applications to receive consultations from their patients were used by 76.9 % of pediatricians. WhatsApp (46.6 %) was the most integrated platform. It was considered by 74 % that non facetofaceconsultationsshouldberemunerated. Conclusion: EHR was used by 44 % of pediatricians who responded. And 49.8 % were considering the implementation of some EHR systemduringthenextyear.Electronicmessaging was widespread (76.9 %) in all age ranges.