Construction of Internet +home Care Quality Supervision Indicators in China Based on the Delphi Method

With the aging of China's population, the incidence rate of chronic diseases is rising. At the same time, residents' health awareness is also increasing. Implementing Internet +home care is an inevitable trend in adapting social development. Currently, Internet +home care is in the pilot stage in China, relevant institutional measures are neither standardized nor perfect, and there is no set of quality supervision indicators (QSIs).

The construction of Internet +home care QSIs in China will provide a theoretical basis for Internet +home care quality supervision.

The Service-Quality model was used as the theoretical framework, and a literature review, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and Delphi consultations determined the contents of the QSIs and the weight of each indicator.

Internet +home care QSIs were constructed and included 5 first-level indicators, 17 secondary indicators, and 69 tertiary indicators. The effective recovery rates of the two rounds of Delphi expert consultation were 100% and 85%, the expert authority coefficients were 0.810 and 0.833, and the Kendall harmony coefficients were 0.189 and 0.125 (P<0.01). The final set of Internet +home care QSIs was as follows: tangibility (4 secondary and 16 tertiary indicators), reliability (4 secondary and 19 tertiary indicators), guarantee (5 secondary and 20 tertiary indicators), responsiveness (2 secondary and 8 tertiary indicators), and empathy (2 secondary and 6 tertiary indicators).

The construction of Internet +home care QSIs based on the SERVQUAL model is scientifically valid, and the indicators are reliable. They provide guidance and reference values for the continuous improvement and promotion of Internet +home care. This work also provides a theoretical basis for researching and developing an Internet +home care quality supervision platform.