Users' preferences for telemedical consultations: Comparing users' attitude towards different media in technology-mediated doctor-patient-communication

Within industrialized countries healthcare systems currently change to cope with the upcoming consequences of the demographic change. One of the most serious challenges is the maintenance of the area-wide supply chain of medical care despite the threatening shortage of physicians. In this context, telemedical services for communication between doctors and patients gain in importance. Crucial for the success of such electronic services is the choice of the medium, which must be appropriate for this special purpose of use and, finally, accepted by its users. In this paper, an exploratory survey was conducted to detect acceptance motives of five different media (face-to-face, telephone, videophone, video conference, interactive wall) in two different usage situations. 103 respondents participated (17-83 years). Findings show that for the standard case, a face-to-face consultation is still highly preferred compared to any telemedical applications. For emergency situations, participants' attitudes change: A telephone consultation was similarly well accepted than face-to-face communication. As the most comfortable service a face-to-face-consultation was corroborated, followed by the videophone consultation.