Healthcare personel does not consider the eHealth service "patient online access to their electronic health record" to be beneficial for the work environment and patient safety

IntroductionGovernment and public agencies in Sweden have promoted the expansion of eHealth. The strategy behind many of the eHealth services is to increase quality of care, enhance efficiency, patient empowerment and patient safety. Patient online access to their electronic health record (EHR) is one of the most important civic eHealth services. By 2017, all patients in Sweden will be able to access their EHR online. In Mars 2014, Region Skåne (RS) introduced the service in somatic care and in September 2015 RS introduced the service in adult psychiatry. The aim of this presentation is to discuss 1) how the employees in somatic care experience the service in terms of effects on work environment and patient safety. 2) How the employees in psychiatric care anticipated that the service would affect their work environment and patient safety. Material and methodsThe material presented derives from two surveys: 1) A full population web survey distributed to employees in somatic care in RS approximately two years after the introduction of the service (post implementation). Response rate: 20% (n = 2376). 2) A full population web survey that was distributed to employees in adult psychiatry in RS just before the introduction of the service (ante implementation). Response rate: 29% (n = 871). ResultsThe results show that the experience in somatic care and the expectation in adult psychiatric care correspond to a large degree. Respondents in both groups are sceptical to the anticipated positive effects of the service. The comparison between the two surveys further show that the employees with experience of the service (somatic care) are even more negative then the employees without experience (psychiatric care).ConclusionsThe results from the two surveys indicate that there is a large difference between the aimes of the national eHealth strategy and the expectations and experiences of the healthcare personell and that little attention is given to the negative effects that civic eHealth services may have on the work environment of healthcare personell. There is thus a need for more research about how eHealth services affect work environment, patient safety and quality of care