Patients’ Communication with Primary Care: A Pre-study for a new communication system

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to explore patients’ experiences and preferences concerning communication with primary care, as well as their attitude towards a future digital system to manage communication. The Swedish county councils and municipalities (SKL) is developing a new digital tool as a complement in the communication between patients and physicians, thus this research is a preliminary investigation of a larger approach. The research has been based on 20 semi-structured interviews with patients in ages between 21 and 86 from 13 different health care centers in Sweden. The interviews indicate that the communication between patients and physicians needs development in numerous ways and that the system used by the primary care contributes to negative outcomes in the communication. Patients’ attitudes towards a new digital system to manage communication were investigated and a majority was positive. The study’s results pointed out the importance of the physicians’ attitudes in the physician-patient communication, and brought some possible improvements to be done in the actual primary care system; as for example implementing new communication channels to allow an easier contact of patients with their health care center. The new communication tool was overall well received and even appeared to be a suitable solution for some of the problems discovered along the patients’ journey. The overall results obtained are positive and promising towards its implementation in Sweden.