Digitala vårdgivare i primärvården - Upplever patienter större tillgänglighet?)

Abstract

Since 2016 digital healthcare has been a part of the Swedish primary healthcare market. Therefore the purpose of this study is to examine how digital healthcare has affected the patients experience of access to primary healthcare from 2015 until 2019. The data that was used is on the municipal level. “Experience of access to primary physical care” was used as the dependent variable and “Digital health care visits per 1000 people” was used as the independent variable. In order to examine if causality exists, first OLS-regressions were done on data over 2017 and 2019 separately, then a FE-regression over panel data for 2015-2019 was done in order to reduce OV-bias. Lastly an IV-regression over data for 2019 was done to make sure that reverse causality does not exist. The IV-variable that was used were the proportion of digital tax returns that were made. The results show that even though patients nowadays are able to get in touch with a doctor in 15 minutes, there is still a negative relationship between more digital healthcare and how patients experience the access to primary health care. That implies that increasing the amount of digital healthcare leads to a lower experience of access to primary physical healthcare.