Primary Care Provider
Conditions
Keywords
digital healthcare, telemedicine, digital clinic, primary care, healthcare utilization, randomized controlled trial
Brief summary
This randomized controlled trial (RCT) examines the impacts of a publicly provided digital clinic that offers digital primary care services to consumers. This intervention grants access to a public digital clinic that provides chat-based primary care consultations via a mobile phone application and website, including care needs assessment, diagnoses, follow-up care recommendations, and prescriptions. The digital clinic supplements traditional public primary care services, including in-person visits and phone consultations. The trial takes place in Ostrobothnia, Finland, a healthcare district serving a population of 178,000 residents. The investigators will randomize access to the digital clinic at the household level, providing access to 50% of the households. By doing so, the investigators aim to evaluate whether digital services can substitute for, complement, or increase the utilization of traditional primary care, particularly in-person visits or calls to traditional clinics. At the end of the nine-month trial, access to the digital clinic will be expanded to the entire population.
Interventions
OTHERAccess to a digital clinic
This intervention grants access to a digital clinic that provides chat-based primary care consultations via phone application and website.
Sponsors
Aalto University
University of Turku
Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
Masking
NONE
Intervention model description
Cluster-randomized controlled trials, households as clusters
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
for the intervention: * All residents alive and residing in the region of Ostrobothnia (Finland) on March 14, 2015, AND permanent address observed in the Finnish Population Information System
Exclusion criteria
for the intervention: * Resides in the city of Kristiinankaupunki OR resides in a household defined as institutionalized care
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| The number of in-person visits in public primary care (Y1.1) | From the digital clinic launch to the end of treatment at 9 months | This outcome includes in-person visits to nurses and physicians in traditional public primary care clinics. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| The number of other contacts with traditional public primary care (Y1.2) | From the digital clinic launch to the end of treatment at 9 months | This outcome includes care needs assessments, remote appointments to nurses and physicians, and professional-to-professional interactions between nurses and physicians in traditional public primary care clinics. |
| The number of public digital clinic contacts (D.1). | From the digital clinic launch to the end of treatment at 9 months | This outcome includes care needs assessments, remote appointments to nurses and physicians (via chat and video), and professional-to-professional interactions between nurses and physicians in digital public primary care clinics. |
Other
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| The total number of public primary care contacts (Y1.3) | From the digital clinic launch to the end of treatment at 9 months | This outcome includes in-person visits to nurses and physicians, care needs assessments, remote appointments to nurses and physicians, and professional-to-professional interactions between nurses and physicians in digital and traditional public primary care clinics. |
| Presence or absence of public digital clinic contacts during the follow-up (yes/no) (D.2). | From the digital clinic launch to the end of treatment at 9 months | This outcome includes care needs assessments, remote appointments to nurses and physicians (via chat and video), and professional-to-professional interactions between nurses and physicians in digital public primary care clinics. This outcome is 1 if the person has at least one contact with the public digital clinic during follow-up and 0 if the person has no contact during follow-up. |
Countries
Finland
Outcome results
None listed