Purpose: To determine needs, expectations, facilitators, and barriers of insurance physicians (IPs) for using eHealth in their work. Also, we investigated differences between age groups.
Materials and methods: All insurance physicians employed at the Dutch Social Security Institute (SSI) received an online anonymous survey in July 2020.
Results: Three hundred and fifteen IPs (31%) responded. According to these IPs, the most important need for using eHealth was to collect medical information more effectively and efficiently (71%).Main facilitators were that eHealth could make IPs' work more effectively and efficiently (61%) and more future-proof (60%). Main barriers were losing human interaction (54%) and security issues (51%). Younger IPs saw more options for using eHealth, compared to older IPs.
Conclusions: The majority of IPs (in particular younger IPs) had a positive view towards using eHealth in their daily work. Nevertheless, differences in needs, expectations, facilitators and barriers between the age groups should be taken into account for the successful development and implementation of interventions using eHealth in insurance medicine.
Keywords: Insurance medicine; needs assessment; return to work; technology; work disability assessment.
For the successful development and implementation of eHealth interventions in insurance medicine and rehabilitation, the needs, expectations, facilitators, and barriers that physicians indicate should be taken into account.Insurance physicians support the use of eHealth interventions to collect medical information more effectively and efficiently, to contribute to and maintain the quality of care, in the perspective of managing expected shortages in insurance physicians.When concretizing eHealth interventions for rehabilitation professionals, one should take the importance of face to face interaction with patients into account.Extra education and training for older insurance physicians may improve the implementation of eHealth interventions, because they are less inclined to see its value and feel less competent to use it.