Over half of healthcare professionals find that differences in digital skills between patients result in unequal access to care, according to research by NPM participation Conclusion. The IT and business transformation service provider surveyed 643 healthcare professionals in the Netherlands, including physicians, care managers, and IT decision-makers.
Nearly half of respondents (49 percent) believe patients' digital skills are generally overestimated. More than half (52 percent) are already seeing problems arise. For example, patients may be unable to schedule online appointments, access medication instructions, or view their test results. According to respondents, this is not solely due to limited digital skills. Applications such as patient portals and home monitoring apps are often not user-friendly enough.
Such practical consequences aside, there are also substantive concerns about the impact of digitalization on the relationship between patients and healthcare professionals. While 88 percent of professionals agree that human contact must remain central, 42 percent fear this will come under pressure. Furthermore, 48 percent believe that the development of digital care is currently driven largely by organizational goals rather than patient needs.
“Digital inequality is already leading to practical problems, such as patients missing their medication or being unable to make appointments,” said Herbert Fetter, managing consultant at the consultancy Morgens Conclusion. “That's why we need to pay much more attention to the accessibility of digital healthcare applications, which should be tailored to different target groups. Presenting information in a comprehensible way also deserves to be a priority. Technologies like AI allow us to easily offer information at different language levels, but that’s still only rarely implemented. If we take digitalization seriously, we must actively involve patients in the development process. Digital inclusion and accessibility must become a structural component of healthcare policy, not an afterthought.”