Abstract:

Digital health literacy (dHL) is a main future competence for patients to participate in a more and more digital healthcare system and to make self-determined decisions regarding one’s own health. Studies reveal that the German population has a quite low dHL, especially in vulnerable groups such as chronically ill, elderly or less educated people. In order to change this, the German legislator obliged the statutory health insurances (SHI) in 2020 to provide educational measures to their insureds. Until now, the SHI have not implemented these measures properly. There is a lack of an empirically derived approach to promote dHL in the German healthcare system in a holistic way. This includes ways to reach all target groups, considering the interaction between the healthcare system, its actors, insured persons, and especially educational measures. To close this research gap and to create an integral concept for the successful promotion of dHL of SHI insured persons in Germany, the author conducts a Delphi-study.

In preparation for the Delphi-study, a pre-study in the form of guided expert interviews with twelve participants was conducted. The aim of the study was, on the one hand, to derive expert opinions on future developments in the topic of dHL in Germany. On the other hand, the aim was to derive necessary conditions for a successful education. The evaluation of the interviews followed a content-structuring qualitative content analysis according to Kuckartz.

The experts generally assume that dHL of SHI insured persons will increase over the next years. However, they link this development to central key factors that must be given for this. The key factors refer to all levels of the SHI system from the further development of digital structures to the integration of target group-specific educational measures to bring the value of digitization closer to insureds and to finally avoid a digital divide. All in all, the results imply a further development of framework conditions, responsibilities, and educational measures in the healthcare system and thus an urgent and proactive need for action. This congress contribution briefly presents the methodology of the Delphi-study and in more detail the guided expert interviews with its central questions and results. In this way, the contribution provides a comprehensive overview of central lines of development in the topic of dHL in Germany. Furthermore, it provides insights into critical key factors for a successful promotion of dHL in interaction with the SHI system. These factors are to be considered for the development of a holistic concept within the framework of the connecting Delphi-study. In addition, relevant further research approaches were identified. Finally, the results are summarized and an outlook for future developments is presented.

Keywords:

Digital health literacy, SHI system, digitization skills, Delphi-study, Germany.