Barriers and facilitators of developing and implementing eHealth applications: a questionnaire study with eHealth professionals

Introduction: Implementing eHealth in health care organizations can be complicated. Reasons for this are: lack of interoperability between systems, software issues, costs, lack of policies and privacy issues. Good knowledge about the potential barriers and facilitators of the implementation of eHealth is necessary for proper implementation of eHealth. Aim: Investigate barriers and facilitators of developing and implementing eHealth applications in a health care setting. Method: 4 Dutch eHealth experts were interviewed about barriers and facilitators of implementation. Based on these results and on findings in scientific literature an online questionnaire was developed. The survey contained three main topics: 1)The development of eHealth, 2)the implementation of eHealth and 3)the maintenance of eHealth. the survey consisted of 36 questions of which 30 multiple choice and six open-ended questions. Results: 55 professionals from Dutch health care organizations completed the survey (32% male, mean age 41±13 years, 70% projects leaders, 26% healthcare professionals, 16% managers, 5% software developers). Good cooperation between managers/healthcare professionals and software developers and a clear project plan were associated with higher satisfaction about the development process and the final eHealth product. Meetings between involved parties were most effective during the implementation phase. Insufficient involvement of the target population (e.g. patients) lead to low satisfaction of eHealth projects. Conclusion: The results of this study are relevant for al professionals dealing with the challenging implementation of eHealth in health care organizations.