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Patient Trust in Internet‐based Health Records: An Analysis Across Operator Types and Levels of Patient Involvement in Germany
Author(s) -
Rauer Ulrike
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
policy and internet
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.281
H-Index - 26
ISSN - 1944-2866
DOI - 10.1515/1944-2866.1177
Subject(s) - the internet , medical record , internet privacy , trustworthiness , german , government (linguistics) , control (management) , health care , patient portal , public health , medicine , family medicine , psychology , business , computer science , nursing , political science , world wide web , law , surgery , geography , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , artificial intelligence
Patient trust is often considered a major hurdle to the adoption of Internet‐based health records. Moreover, trust in physicians may suffer if patients do not trust the way their medical data is stored. This research examines the structural and institutional factors influencing patient trust in Internet‐based health records in Germany. Specifically, it focuses on the question of whether patient trust varies with the Internet‐based health record's operator type (medical vs. non‐medical, private vs. public) and the level of patient involvement in terms of access and control. To answer this question, a sequential mixed methods study was conducted. Eight semi‐structured patient interviews helped to gain understanding of trust and develop the survey instrument. Afterwards, the offline survey of 340 patients in four German surgeries enabled the findings to be generalised to the German population. The findings indicate that patients consider medical operators more trustworthy than non‐medical ones. However, the dichotomy between public and private is false: patients perceive physicians and health insurance providers as trustworthy, as opposed to the government and corporations. Likewise, patient involvement in terms of access and control is trust‐enhancing. But to accept a generally less trustworthy operator, control is necessary, as opposed to only access. These results provide valuable insights for policy measures regarding Internet‐based health records in Germany: to gain patient trust, the operator should ideally be of a medical nature and allow patients to get involved in how their health records are maintained.