Digital infrastructure and uptake of remote appointments in primary care in England: an empirical analysis
The Unsolved Problem:
How can we think about addressing the ongoing reduction in the total number of GP practices, staff workload which is a contributing factor to demanding work environments to meet patient needs?
Abstract:
This study looks at the patterns in the use of remote appointments before and after the arrival of Covid-19. The paper has two objectives. First, to investigate the spread of broadband and mobile usage across England before and after the arrival of Covid-19 England. Second, to empirically estimate the impact of the use of broadband and mobile usage on the likelihood of remote appointments in primary care in England and the impact on patient satisfaction. We use publicly available data using five waves of the GP Patient Survey in England (2018 to 2022). We link the five waves of data on GP practices to five waves of publicly available data on internet activity from the UK telecommunications regulator, Ofcom, using two measures: broadband strength and mobile usage
About the speaker:
Dr Divya Srivastava is a health economist with expertise in health financing, digital health technologies and comparative health policy. Her work has been published in various journals including Social Science and Medicine, BMJ Global Health, BMC Public Health and Applied Economics.
She has worked for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and De