Electronic communication experiences of home health care nurses and general practitioners: a cross-sectional study

Future health care will require suitable means of communication between home health care nurses and general practitioners (GPs) to ensure safe care for homebound patients. The overall aim of this study was to investigate the experiences of home health care nurses and general practitioners using e-messaging in their communication. We conducted a cross-sectional study with a mailed questionnaire. A total of 584 home health care nurses and GPs who used e-messaging and 495 home health care nurses and GPs who did not use e-messaging completed the questionnaire. The results showed that there was high agreement, in all the groups, that e-messaging led to better communication quality, better access to patient information, and an improved ability to prevent and reduce errors and omissions. Nurses reported the most agreement, which led to the conclusion that it was the characteristics of the profession rather than the use of e-messaging that influenced high agreement.