Innovative ehealth interventions in nursing research. How to utilize a mixed method approach to design, development, evaluation and implementation

Abstract

Electronic health (eHealth) interventions have shown promising results in optimizing self-management and care for patients. eHealth offers a large range of solutions to be used by the patient, nurses and other health professionals when providing care and follow-up for patients, families, and communities. Nurses, as the largest group of health care providers, have a responsibility in the development, research and implementation of eHealth interventions. The aim of this article is to describe methods, frameworks and models for development and testing of eHealth interventions, including security and privacy considerations and methods for implementation into the health care service. To succeed with development, testing and implementation of eHealth interventions, the following steps could be addressed: 1) base the intervention on existing evidence when available, 2) include all relevant stakeholders in the development phase, 3) develop a business model at project start and plan for implementation, 4) establish usability, acceptability, compliance, and delivery of the intervention through a feasibility pilot prior to larger studies, 5) test for intervention effect by using an appropriate study design and perform process-and economic evaluation to supplement findings, and 6) use appropriate implementation strategies to implement efficient interventions and evaluate the implementation.