Article published in SAGE Journals Digital Health, explores the perspectives of adoption of technology-based nutrition models, as well as the increase in their use in hospitals.
The objective of the study was to determine the factors and perspectives that favor the adoption, expansion, sustainability, and diffusion of technology-based nutrition care models, specifically in hospital and outpatient settings.
“Technology-supported models of care are disrupting traditional health and nutrition care, emerging as a feasible and sustainable way to optimize equitable access to services,” the study explains. In addition, asynchronous platforms such as mobile apps or web tools are ideal for patients to easily access information at any time, working as a self-management approach.
Tools such as telehealth have been harnessed by nutrition professionals for patients with chronic conditions in different settings. In addition, the pandemic accelerated the use of this type of care model.
For the study, the authors used individual semi-structured interviews with 31 health service providers as a method. In this sense, they used the framework of non-adoption, abandonment and challenges of scaling, diffusion and sustainability (NASS, for its acronym in English), which measures the success of models supported by technology.
“The NASSS framework incorporates seven domains, namely condition; The technology; the value proposition; the system adoption; the organization; the larger context and integration and adaptation over time”, explain the authors.
The researchers found that technology-supported models of care benefited diverse groups of patients. For example, in the Condition variable of the NASSS, they showed that these nutritional care models were adequate for most groups of patients with chronic diseases.
And regarding Adoption, the dieticians explained that they had to adapt to the way of providing care, whether by telephone or by video conference. They also recognized that the pandemic intensified the use of care models with technological support.
Regarding the perceived barriers, the authors detail that it is also subject to the previous experiences and skills of the patients, or to the lack of confidence of the health providers in the technology. However, the enabling factors that support the NASS criteria allow face-to-face care to coexist with technological models that also facilitate the work of professionals, in this case nutrition.
Check out the full study here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20552076221104670
