A study on medical teleconsultation takes top honours at the ASAC Conference
June 22, 2020
At the 48th annual Congress of the Administrative Science Association of Canada (ASAC), held for the first time on line from June 12 to 15, the Best Paper Award in the Information Systems Division went to Antoine Grenier Ouimet, holder of an MSc – transformation numérique des organisations from HEC Montréal, Professor Guy Paré, and Postdoctoral Fellow Gerit Wagner.
Based on Grenier Ouimet’s Master’s thesis, Why Do People Keep Consulting Physicians Online? A Study of Teleconsultation Continuance Intention looks at a topical subject during the current pandemic, i.e. medical teleconsultation.
“The COVID-19 crisis has led to a radical transformation in healthcare,” Antoine Grenier Ouimet says. “In order to prevent the virus from spreading and keep providing patients with the necessary care, teleconsultation is being more widely used than ever. In addition to helping manage the crisis, this approach is considered a valuable opportunity to address recurring challenges in healthcare systems, such as accessibility, continuity and costs, while maintaining quality of care.”
Guy Paré, Antoine Grenier Ouimet and Gerit Wagner
As part of their study, the three coauthors developed and tested a research model to identify the factors that motivate patients to continue using a teleconsultation platform. To do so, they collected their empirical data through an online survey of over 100 users in Quebec. They found that the main determinants of subjects’ continuance intention are:
- Patient satisfaction
- Perceived usefulness of the teleconsultation
- Quality of the service provided by health professionals
- Confirmation of initial expectations
- Ease of use of the telecare platform
Since satisfaction depends largely on the confirmation of patients’ expectations, they must be well informed of the possibilities, limitations and benefits of teleconsultation.
An avant-garde study
The paper was written before the COVID-19 crisis, and already pointed to the urgent need to provide healthcare using information technologies. Consequently, the pandemic could represent an opportunity to encourage broader adoption and use of teleconsultation in future, as the coauthors note:
“The answers from our respondents, collected before the crisis, show their interest in receiving remote care, as well as their great satisfaction with the care received. These results indicate that patients will continue to want to receive remote care, even once things are back to ‘normal.’ Integrating teleconsultation into healthcare suppliers’ practices on a sustained basis would even make it possible to be better prepared for any future crises.”
About the coauthors
In addition to directing the Research Chair in Digital Health since 2004, Guy Paré has been a Professor in the Department of Information Technologies since 1994 and Program Director of the PhD in Administration since 2019. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and has over one hundred publications in scientific journals to his credit.
Antoine Grenier Ouimet is currently a Research Assistant with the Chair directed by Professor Paré. He will be starting his PhD in information technology at Queen's University, in Kingston, in the fall of 2020. Gerit Wagner has been a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Chair since January 2020.