Building primary health care personnel's support for a patient portal while alleviating eHealth-related stress: Survey study

Abstract

Background: Health care personnel's (HCP) engagement in patient portal implementation is necessary in embedding the use of the portal in everyday practices of a health care organization. While portal implementation may raise personnel's positive expectations of the benefits in patient care, it is often also stressful for them due to increased workloads and disruptions in clinical workflows. An understanding of social and technical factors that build personnel's support for patient portal implementation and alleviate their eHealth-related stress is therefore needed to realize the full potential of portals. Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the influence of managerial implementation practices, information technology (IT) usability, and personnel's eHealth competences on support for patient portal implementation and eHealth-related stress among primary HCP. Methods: The data were collected through a survey of 919 members at 2 health organizations in Finland. Linear and logistic regression models were fitted to study the associations between the variables. Results: Professionals' eHealth competence (β=.15, P