Physicians' Experiences of Patient-Initiated Online Consultations in Primary Care Using Direct-To-Consumer Technology

Both private and public primary healthcare providers increasingly offer their patients online consultation services on request. However, the actual use of these services from a physician's perspective as well as the educational competencies required by the physicians are insufficiently studied. The aim of this study is therefore to explore how general practitioners (GPs) experience video consultations with patients compared to physical consultations in primary care in Sweden. We performed a web-based survey amongst 32 GPs. Despite the advantage of being perceived as time saving, more than half of the physicians did not agree that video consultations are more effective than physical consultations. Most physicians had a positive attitude towards the use of video consultations in their work but reliability of the technical platform was considered to be essential, younger physicians should have worked with physical consultations prior to working with online consultations and the use of (semi-) automatic triage systems was wanted when patients themselves can book appointments for online consultations.