Twenty-first International Conference on Knowledge, Culture, and Change in Organizations

Abstract

Telemedicine is a growing area in healthcare, due to fast technological development offering suitable equipment and channel for distant medical consultation and care. Telemedicine includes a promise towards more cost-efficient care that is free of the limitations of physical distance and strict office hours. Many of the earlier studies of telemedicine have focused on the patient side, but there are fewer studies that have analyzed telecare from the viewpoint of the medical care giver, i.e. the physician. For the physicians telecare means a new kind of work context, as the medical work is carried out as distance work that is usually perceived as individual and even lonely work. Furthermore, this kind of new work environment set also new kinds of technical competence requirements and communication skills for the physicians. In order to support the physicians entering to telemedicine and telework, more emphasis should be put on the training and peer support that is provided to them. This study examines the training needs and perceptions and the peer support practices in telemedicine work context through an empirical study. The empirical study was carried out as structured interviews of physicians of medium sized private healthcare company. The results of the empirical study show that telemedicine as distant work can be built as pleasant work environment for the professionals, if proper training and peer support is provided. This needs, however, new kinds of training methods and special attention for technological issues and communication practices.