Implications for sustainable healthcare operations in embracing telemedicine services during a pandemic

Abstract

Technological interventions in the healthcare sector, namely, telemedicine services, have helped the government and people in these extraordinarily challenging times of ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We identify and group key success factors relevant to telemedicine services under 7 contextual criteria. Furthermore, we explore the causal relations among them using the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method. Then, by applying the Bayesian best-worst method (BWM), we compute the relative importance of these criteria. Thereafter, we rank six hospitals that have provided telemedicine services through a comparative evaluation using the VIsekriterijumsko KOmpromisno Rangiranjie (VIKOR) method. The threefold findings of our study reveal that (i) the technological criteria provide the highest causal impact, while the environmental criteria provide the least causal impact. (ii) The hierarchical model of criteria, achieved through the Bayesian BWM score, shows that the criteria weights for both technological and organizational criteria are maximum (0.205) and minimum (0.087), respectively. (iii) The evaluation of six hospitals with VIKOR based on seven criteria ranks the Himalayan hospital as first, showing that it is best in providing telemedicine services to patients. Public health policymakers could use the results of our study to devise an effective plan for patient care in crisis, like COVID-19.

Assessing the influence of COVID-19 protocol on online health information seeking intention of athletes in India

“…From a managerial standpoint, the findings have significant implications and would be especially valuable for athletes, physicians and OHI seekers during COVID-19. First, with the (Chauhan et al, 2022) telemedicine services, OHI can help physicians more effectively clarify complex health conditions to enhance outcomes and reduce the foot traffic of athletes or any OHI seeker in hospitals. On the contrary, physicians can be worried that athletes or patients have needless questions about their health, recognising that they also have irrelevant and unreliable OHI owing to the dark side.…”

Distance is no longer a barrier to healthcare services: current state and future trends of telehealth research

“…The state of telehealth consultations, patients can deal with health issues promptly and gain timely knowledge about treatment choices available (Giovanna Capponia, 2022;Lu et al, 2021;Xing et al, 2019). The Statista Global Consumer Survey indicates that the proportion of users who use health apps grew by 65% in China, 63% in India, 46% in Australia and 44% in the United States of America in 2020, which reflects the fact that telehealth has emerged as the least risky communicative mechanism between patients and physicians due to strict physical distancing and a lack of viable treatment options during the COVID-19 pandemic (Chauhan et al, 2022;Cobelli et al, 2021;Hirko et al, 2020;Krist et al, 2020;Wu et al, 2022).…”

“…, 2019). The Statista Global Consumer Survey indicates that the proportion of users who use health apps grew by 65% in China, 63% in India, 46% in Australia and 44% in the United States of America in 2020, which reflects the fact that telehealth has emerged as the least risky communicative mechanism between patients and physicians due to strict physical distancing and a lack of viable treatment options during the COVID-19 pandemic (Chauhan et al. , 2022; Cobelli et al.…”

Hospital dual-channel adoption decisions with telemedicine referral and misdiagnosis

“…Since the COVID-19 outbreaks in 2019, hospitals have been regarded as a high-risk environment for the spread of the disease due to the possible presence of infectious sources and the high concentration of people. Telemedicine can reduce patient gathering and control the spread of diseases to some extent [2] and has been widely used during the COVID-19 epidemic. Therefore, telemedicine has a new opportunity for development under the current situation [3] .…”