Enhancing Patient Communication Through Health Professionals’ Digital Literacy

Abstract

Digital health literacy has been defined as the ‘ability to seek, find, understand, and appraise health information from electronic sources and apply the knowledge gained to address or solve a health prob­lem’ (Norman and Skinner, 2006). Health literacy and digital health literacy are essential in order to reach universal health coverage and to reform the processes of the healthcare systems (WHO, 2018). Healthcare professionals need to treat patients in a continuous evolving structure (WHO, 2013). The re­search question that guided the paper is ‘How can Romanian health professionals’ digital health liter­acy be used to improve communication with their patients?’. The aim of the study is to explore Roma­nian health professionals’ level of digital literacy, to identify how it can improve the communication with the patients. 20 interviews with resident and senior medical doctors, medical students and nurses were conducted. The interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and then stored as Word documents in a password-secured environment. From the data gath­ered in the interviews four major themes emerged: (a) digital health literacy; (b) communication with the patients; (c) improvements for the National Health Strategy 2014-2020; (d) time as a barrier in commu­nication. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis through the MAXQDA2018 software.