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Abstract/Summary
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<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec>
<jats:title>Introduction</jats:title>
<jats:p>Increasing numbers of ambulance calls, vacant positions and growing workloads in Emergency Medicine (EM) are increasing the pressure to find adequate solutions. With telemedicine providing health-care services by bridging large distances, connecting remote providers and even patients while using modern communication technologies, such a technology seems beneficial. As the process of developing an optimal solution is challenging, a need to quantify involved processes could improve implementation. Existing models are based on qualitative studies although standardised questionnaires for factors such as Usability, Acceptability and Effectiveness exist.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Methods</jats:title>
<jats:p>A survey was provided to participants within a German county. It was based on telemedical surveys, the System Usabilty Scale (SUS) and earlier works describing Usability, Acceptability and Effectiveness. Meanwhile a telemedical system was introduced in the investigated county. A comparison between user-groups aswell as an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Results</jats:title>
<jats:p>Of <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 91 included participants <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 73 (80,2%) were qualified as emergency medical staff (including paramedics <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 36 (39,56%), EMTs <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 28 (30,77%), call handlers <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 9 (9,89%)) and <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 18 (19,8%) as emergency physicians. Most participants approved that telemedicine positively impacts EM and improved treatment options with an overall Usabilty Score of 68,68. EFA provided a 3-factor solution involving Usability, Acceptability and Effectiveness.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Discussion</jats:title>
<jats:p>With our results being comparable to earlier studies but telemedicine only having being sparsely introduced, a positive attitude could still be attested. While our model describes 51,28% of the underlying factors, more research is needed to identify further influences. We showed that Usability is correlated with Acceptability (strong effect), Usability and Effectiveness with a medium effect, likewise Acceptability and Effectiveness. Therefore available systems need to improve. Our approach can be a guide for decision makers and developers, that a focus during implementation must be on improving usability and on a valid data driven implementation process.</jats:p>
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