The Role of Health Technologies in Multicomponent Primary Care Interventions: Systematic Review

Several countries around the world have implemented multicomponent interventions to enhance primary care, as a way of strengthening their health systems to cope with an aging chronically ill population and rising costs. Some of these efforts have included technology-based enhancements as one of the features to support the overall intervention, but their details and impacts have not been explored.

This study aimed to identify the role of digital/health technologies within wider multifeature interventions that are aimed at enhancing primary care, and to describe their aims and stakeholders, types of technologies used, and potential impacts.

A systematic review was performed following Cochrane guidelines. An electronic search, conducted on May 30, 2019, was supplemented with manual and grey literature searches in December 2019, to identify multicomponent interventions that included at least one technology-based enhancement. After title/abstract and full text screening, selected articles were assessed for quality based on their study design. A descriptive narrative synthesis was used for analysis and presentation of the results.

Of 37 articles, 14 (38%) described the inclusion of a technology-based innovation as part of their multicomponent interventions to enhance primary care. The most commonly identified technologies were the use of electronic health records, data monitoring technologies, and online portals with messaging platforms. The most common aim of these technologies was to improve continuity of care and comprehensiveness, which resulted in increased patient satisfaction, increased primary care visits compared to specialist visits, and the provision of more health prevention education and improved prescribing practices. Technologies seem also to increase costs and utilization for some parameters, such as increased consultation costs and increased number of drugs prescribed.

Technologies and digital health have not played a major role within comprehensive innovation efforts aimed at enhancing primary care, reflecting that these technologies have not yet reached maturity or wider acceptance as a means for improving primary care. Stronger policy and financial support, and advocacy of key stakeholders are needed to encourage the introduction of efficient technological innovations, which are backed by evidence-based research, so that digital technologies can fulfill the promise of supporting strong sustainable primary care.