Hardiker, NR and Grant, MJ 2010, 'Barriers and facilitators that affect public engagement with eHealth services' , in: MEDINFO 2010: Proceedings of the 13th World Congress on Health (Medical) Informatics , Studies in Health Technology and Informatics (160) , IOS Press, Amsterdam, pp. 13-17.

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Abstract

It is commonly accepted that public engagement with eHealth is beneficial. However, engagement is also variable. This ar-ticle presents the findings of a review of published evaluation studies around eHealth services. A targeted search of MEDLINE, CINAHL and EMBASE returned 2622 unique ab-stracts. 50 articles met the inclusion criteria and were sub-jected to further analysis. 6 review articles were used for post hoc validation. Four main types of eHealth service or re-source were identified: health information on the Internet; custom-built online health information; online support; and telehealth. 5 key themes emerged in terms of facilitators or barriers to engagement: characteristics of users; technologi-cal issues; characteristics of eHealth services; content issues; social aspects of use; and eHealth services in use. Recom-mendations arising from the review include: targeting efforts to engage those underserved by eHealth; maximizing expo-sure to eHealth across all sections of society; improving access to computers and the internet; appropriate design and delivery; ensuring content is relevant to different audiences; capitalizing on the interest in social computing; and clarifying the role of health workers in the delivery of eHealth.

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