Exploring healthcare providers' perspectives on virtual care delivery: insights into telemedicine services

The rapid advancement of technology has led to a concurrent advancement of telemedicine, that is the delivery of medical services over a long distance using technological methods. The consistently growing numbers of COVID-19 cases warranted the use of telemedicine as an alternative method of care-delivery. This study aims to evaluate perceptions of healthcare services provided virtually among healthcare providers (HCPs) in Kuwait and to assess their acceptance and intention to implement such services.

An exploratory mixed methods design was conducted, where in phase one HCPs' perceptions towards telemedicine were explored through an online questionnaire and the quantitative data were summarized by descriptive analysis using SPSS. Scores for usefulness and for attitude toward the use of telemedicine were calculated. Then semi-structured interviews were conducted in phase two and the qualitative data were analyzed thematically.

In phase one, 421 HCPs answered the questionnaire. In terms of telemedicine knowledge, 15.4% of HCPs had previously used telemedicine technology and 39% already knew about it. Additionally, 42.3% preferred to use telemedicine, and 88.5% had a moderate to high usefulness score. Telemedicine's ease of use was perceived positively. Attitude median score was 73 with an IQR of 16 (63-79). Half of the participants intend to use telemedicine. In phase two, twenty-two interviews were conducted resulting in six themes; HCPs' acceptance of telemedicine, facilitators and motives for telemedicine implementation, skills and training required to conduct telemedicine, barriers limiting the use of telemedicine, strategies to overcome the barriers, and benefits of telemedicine.

Most of the HCPs favor telemedicine integration into Kuwait's healthcare system as their perceptions of telemedicine were overall positive, paving the way to develop implementation strategies.