Sammanfattning
Background: Exchange of electronic health information between general practitioners (GPs) and
home health care services, e-messages are a new means of improving interaction across health care
services.
Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the expectations to and experiences on how the
introduction of e-messages affected the quality of service and interaction regarding shared patients
between GPs and home health care services.
Method: A qualitative study with semi-structured individual interviews and focus group interviews
with 9 employees in the home health care services and 10 GPs.
Result: Respondents both expected and experienced that e-messages contributed to closer
interaction. Electronic message exchange had a positive effect on the quality of information and
especially for clarifications on medicine use. However, because not everyone started using e-
messages simultaneously, this led to some initial confusion during the implementation phase.
Conclusion: This study shows that early users perceive that electronic messaging improves
collaboration, and may consequently lead to higher quality services. In further work on the diffusion
of e-messages it should be taken into consideration that there might be some reluctance among
groups of GPs to use them.