Staff and students’ perceptions about using telehealth technology in a medical university: A qualitative study

Abstract

Introduction

The use of telehealth technology is a way to promote the health status of the community. The purpose of this study was to investigate staff and students’ perceptions about using telehealth technology in a medical university.

Methods

This was a qualitative study completed in 2020. The research participants were 26 university staff and students who took part in semi-structured interviews. To analyze the data, the thematic analysis method was used.

Results

The findings of the present study included five themes, 20 subthemes and 58 categories. The main themes were the current status of providing healthcare services at the university, and the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of using telehealth technology for the university staff and students.

Conclusion

According to the results, there are many opportunities for using telehealth technology in the medical university. The experiences of other institutes can be used to implement the technology successfully.

Keywords:

• Student health services
• telehealth
• telemedicine
• university medical center

Authors’ contributions

H.A. conceptualized and supervised the study. She also prepared the first draft of the manuscript. M.H. helped with data analysis and commented on the manuscript. A.N. conducted the interviews and P.S helped with writing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of Iran and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of Iran University of Medical Sciences.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded and supported by Iran University of Medical Sciences (97-4-37-13827).