Background Health care providers are adopting information and communication technologies (ICTs) to enhance their services. Telemedicine is one of the services that rely heavily on ICTs to enable remote patients to communicate with health care professionals; in this case, the patient communicates with the health care professional for a follow-up or for a consultation about his or her health condition. This communication process is referred to as an e-consultation. In this paper, telemedicine services refer to health care services that use ICTs, which enable patients to share, transfer, and communicate data or information in real time (ie, synchronous) from their home with a care provider—normally a physician—at a clinical site. However, the use of e-consultation services can be positively or negatively influenced by external or internal factors. External factors refer to the environment surrounding the system as well as the system itself, while internal factors refer to user behavior and motivation. Objective This review aims to investigate the barriers and the facilitators that influence the use of home consultation systems in the health care context. This review also aims to identify the effectiveness of Home Online Health Consultation (HOHC) systems in improving patients’ health as well as their satisfaction with the systems. Methods We conducted a systematic literature review to search for articles—empirical studies—about online health consultation in four digital libraries: Scopus, Association for Computing Machinery, PubMed, and Web of Science. The database search yielded 2518 articles; after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the number of included articles for the final review was 45. A qualitative content analysis was performed to identify barriers and facilitators to HOHC systems, their effectiveness, and patients’ satisfaction with them. Results The systematic literature review identified several external and internal facilitators and barriers to HOHC systems that were used in the creation of a HOHC framework. The framework consists of four requirements; the framework also consists of 17 facilitators and eight barriers, which were further categorized as internal and external influencers on HOHC. Conclusions Patients from different age groups and with different health conditions benefited from remote health services. HOHC via video conferencing was effective in delivering online treatment and was well-accepted by patients, as it simulated in-person, face-to-face consultation. Acceptance by patients increased as a result of online consultation facilitators that promoted effective and convenient remote treatment. However, some patients preferred face-to-face consultation and showed resistance to online consultation. Resistance to online consultation was influenced by some of the identified barriers. Overall, the framework identified the facilitators and barriers that positively and negatively influenced the uptake of HOHC systems, respectively.

No abstract

No abstract

BACKGROUND HealthCare providers are adopting information communication technologies (ICT) to enhance their services. Telemedicine is one of the services that rely heavily on ICT technologies to enable remote patients to communicate with their health professional. The patient communicates with the health professional for a follow-up or for a consultation about his/her health condition. This communication process is referred to as an electronic consultation (e-consultation). However, the usage of e-consultation can be influenced positively or negatively by external or internal factors. External factors refer to the environment surrounding the system and the system itself, while internal factors refer to user behaviour and motivation. OBJECTIVE This review aims to (1) investigate the barriers and the facilitators that influence the use of home consultation systems in the healthcare context. Further, it aims to (2) identify the effectiveness of Home Online Health Consultation (HOHC) systems in improving patients’ health and (3) patients’ satisfaction with it. METHODS The researchers conducted a systematic literature review to search for articles (empirical studies) about online health consultation in three digitals libraries: Scopus, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and Web of Science. The search on the databases yielded 1016 articles and after following the Inclusion and Exclusion criteria, the number of included articles for the final review was 44. A qualitative content analysis was performed to identify barriers and facilitators to HOHC, its effectiveness and patients’ satisfaction with it. RESULTS The systematic literature review identified several external and internal facilitators and barriers to HOHC systems that were used in the creation of a HOHC framework. The framework consists of four requirements, 17 facilitators and eight barriers, categorized as internal and external influences on HOHC. CONCLUSIONS Patients from different age groups and different health conditions benefited from remote health services. OHC via video conferencing was effective in delivering online treatment and was well accepted by patients as it simulated in-person face-to-face consultation. Acceptance by patients was assisted by online consultation facilitators that promoted effective and convenient remote treatment. However, some patients preferred face-to-face consultation showing resistance to the online consultation. Resistance to online consultations was influenced by a few of the identified barriers. Overall, the framework identified the facilitators and barriers that positively and negatively influence the uptake of HOHC.