JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The Public Private Interface-electronic Patient Record (PPI-ePR) system was implemented as a new electronic platform to facilitate collaboration between the public and private sectors in Hong Kong. However, its barriers to participate and benefits have not hitherto been comprehensively assessed.

Objective:

This study aims to evaluate the awareness, acceptance, perceived benefits, and obstacles to participation among private doctors and general public.

Methods:

From December 2012 to January 2013, 2,435 telephone interviews were performed by trained interviewers to survey random-selected patients who were enrolled or not enrolled in the PPI-ePR system. At the meantime, self-administered surveys were sent by post to 10,285 registered doctors in Hong Kong. The questionnaires for both patients and doctors contain questions on subjects’ awareness, acceptance and perceptions to PPI-ePR, perceived benefits and obstacles of participating in the programme, reasons for not using the system after enrolling, as well as perceived areas for service improvement of the system.

Results:

Over 53% of enrolled patients believed that the PPI-ePR system would improve healthcare quality by “reducing duplicate tests and treatments”, while over 76% of enrolled doctors emphasized “timely access to patients’ medical records” as the biggest benefit of their enrolment. Among non-enrolled patients, unawareness of the project was among the most popular obstacle of enrolling the PPI-ePR system (40%). Regarding non-enrolled doctors, the complicated registration process hinder them from participating in the programme the most (48%). Establishing of user-friendly interface (71.5%), and open rights for patients to access their own medical records (63.7%) were among the most widely underlined factors to attract non-enrollees’ participation of the programme.

Conclusions:

This study comprehensively assessed the popularity, perceived benefits and hindering factors of enrolling the PPI-ePR system in Hong Kong. Lack of awareness, as well as fear of the complex registration procedures, was the most common reason of individuals’ absence in the program, calling for more frequent and effective promotions of the program. Even for enrolled users, simplified and user-friendly interface with more functions must be developed to improve their activity.