What’s the Name of the Game? The Impact of eHealth on Productive Interactions in Chronic Care Management

Carolina Wannheden, Ulrica von Thiele Schwarz, Claes-Göran Östenson, Karin Pukk Härenstam and Terese Stenfors
Additional contact information
Carolina Wannheden: Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Medical Management Centre, Karolinska Institutet, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden
Ulrica von Thiele Schwarz: Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Medical Management Centre, Karolinska Institutet, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden
Claes-Göran Östenson: Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, Endocrine and Diabetes Unit, Karolinska Institutet, 171 76 Stockholm, Sweden
Karin Pukk Härenstam: Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Medical Management Centre, Karolinska Institutet, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden
Terese Stenfors: Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Division for Learning, Karolinska Institutet, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-17

Abstract: Chronic care management is dependent on productive interactions between patients and healthcare professionals. Digital health technologies (eHealth) open up new possibilities for improving the quality of care, but there is a limited understanding of what productive interactions entail. This study explores characteristics of productive interactions to support self-care and healthcare in the context of eHealth use in diabetes care. We collected qualitative data based on interviews with nurses and responses to open-ended survey questions from patients, prior to and post using an eHealth service for self-monitoring and digital communication. We found that eHealth’s influence on productive interactions was characterized by unconstrained access, health parameter surveillance, and data-driven feedback, with implications for self-care and healthcare. Our findings indicate that eHealth perforates the boundaries that define interactions under traditional, non-digital care. This was manifested in expressions of uncertainty and in blurred boundaries between self-care and healthcare. We conclude that the attainment of a sustainable eHealth ecosystem will require healthcare to acknowledge eHealth as a disruptive change that may require re-organization to optimally support the productive use of eHealth services for both patients and staff, which includes agreement on new routines, as well as social interaction rules.

Keywords: eHealth/mHealth; home telehealth; self-tracking; self-monitoring; remote monitoring; coproduction; qualitative research; chronic care model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/5221/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/5221/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:9:p:5221-:d:550044

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().