The Role of Physicians in Digitalizing Healthcare Provision: A Web-based Survey Study

Background: Digitalization affects all areas of society, including the healthcare sector. However, the digitalization of healthcare provision is progressing slowly compared to other sectors. In professional and political literature physicians are partially portrayed as digitalization sceptics. Thus, the role of physicians in this process require further investigation. The theory of ""digital natives"" suggests a lower hurdle for younger generations to engage with digital technologies. Objective: The objective of this study is to investigate the role of physicians in the process of digitalizing healthcare provision in Germany, and to assess the factor age. Methods: We conducted a largescale study to assess the role of this professional group for the progress of the digital transformation of the German healthcare sector. We therefore inquired in an anonymous online survey current digital penetration of the personal working environment, expectations, attitude towards, and concerns regarding digitalization. Based on this data we studied associations with the nominal variable age and variations across two age groups. Results: 1274 participants generally showed a high affinity towards digitalization with a mean of 3.88 on a five-point Likert-scale. 723 respondents (56.75%) stated they personally use mobile applications in their everyday working life, with a weak association with a weak tendency (i=0.26) to be associated with the respondent's age. Participants saw the highest already noticeable benefits through digitalization in data quality/readability (882/1274, 69.23%), and the least in-patient engagement (213/1274, 16.72%). Medical practitioners preponderantly expect further improvements through increased digitalization across almost all queried areas, but the most in access to medical knowledge (1136/1274, 89.17%), treatment of orphan diseases (1016/1274, 79.75%), and medical research (1023/1274, 80.30%). Conclusions: Respondents defined their role in the digitalization of healthcare provision ambivalent: on the one hand ""scrutinizing"", but also ""active"" and ""open"". A gap between willingness to participate and digital sovoereignty was indicated. Thus, education on digitalization as a mean to support healthcare provision should not only be included in the course of study, but also in the continuing process of further and advanced training.