Does Telecare Improve Interorganisational Collaboration?

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Digital Health
• Interorganizational Collaboration

Background:

• Telecare's potential to enhance collaboration in fragmented healthcare systems is suggested but not widely studied at scale.
• This study investigates a large-scale Danish telecare program utilizing home-monitoring.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the impact of a large-scale telecare program on interorganizational collaboration.
• To analyze collaboration within a telecare network involving municipalities, hospitals, and general practitioners.

Main Methods:

• Employed semi-structured interviews and observations of healthcare professionals.
• Data collection occurred at two time points, one year apart.
• Analyzed collaboration at both the network and sub-network levels.

Main Results:

• Telecare initially intensified collaboration between municipalities and general practitioners.
• This collaboration evolved as initial challenges resolved and patient engagement increased.
• Collaboration between hospitals and municipalities, and hospitals and general practitioners, was not significantly affected by telecare.

Conclusions:

• Changes in collaboration were linked to shifting dependency structures and the municipalities' central role in the telecare network.
• Initial asymmetrical dependencies within the network were partially equalized over time.
• The evolving position of municipalities influenced interprofessional collaboration dynamics.