Digital technology, such as digital health records and telehealth, offers significant potential to improve healthcare outcomes, reduce workload, and enhance efficiencies within the healthcare system. However, these benefits cannot be realised without meaningful community engagement and adoption. At the same time, digital health technologies can potentially increase existing inequities if not done well.
Recognising this challenge, we embarked on a journey to understand community views and expectations and how we might gain buy-in for using digital technologies in health services.
Findings from this research offer broader insights for improving the health system. For instance, the principles of inclusive practices, trust-building, cultural competence, and co-creation can be applied not just to developing digital tools but also to developing health facilities and informing how health services are delivered and adopted by communities.
Dani and the team had very little time to wrap up the research given the sudden change in circumstances with Hira. It’s the only way we can help disseminate the information to wider audiences as usually there has been a weekly roadshow.
