title: Essays on Digital Healthcare and Inclusion
title: Essays zu digitaler Gesundheitsversorgung und Inklusion
titleType: AlternativeTitle
Creators: name: Driebe, Thomas
Publisher: name: Philipps-Universität Marburg
Year: 2022
Subjects: Inclusion Telehealth Hemophilia
Hämophilie
Economics
Wirtschaft
Telehealth
Inklusion

description: This dissertation consists of two main parts in seven essays: Five essays revolve around digital healthcare, while two additional essays cover teachers’ attitude towards inclusion. The first three essays are about the use of telehealth software in chronic disease treatment, using the case of hemophilia. Essays IV and V discuss the development of a 3D-software prototype to provide medical models to novice surgeons or other practitioners. The last two essays present a study on what impacts a teacher’s attitude towards inclusion in vocational education. Essay I develops the model and hypotheses which are used in essay II. It combines and adopts several existing models to cover factors that could influence a physician’s decision to recommend a telehealth app to a patient. Essay II builds on this work and tests the model with survey data. The results show that physicians are more likely to recommend a software if they use the software themselves and if they perceive the software to improve their workplace processes. Essay III turns the perspective of the first two essays and investigates which factors influence a patient to use a telehealth app. This was researched by creating a model based on a combination of existing models that describe the behavior of software users and models of patient behavior. Its results indicate that hedonic motivation has an influence, meaning that healthcare apps still need to provide some level of engagement. The other significant influence was cues to action from the social environment, which includes physicians. This additionally validates the necessity of the study undertaken in the first two essays, where the reasoning for a physician to give such an advice was analyzed. Essay IV and V show the development of a hardware/software prototype to solve current shortcomings in the field of surgical-adjacent medicine, like soft-tissue fillers. Facial treatments, even for aesthetic purposes, often involve unnecessary patient risk due to treatment by unexperienced practitioners and/or a lack of standardized procedures. The developed prototype focuses on affordability and helps in treatment planning and professional self-development. Essay IV focuses on the architecture of the prototype itself, while essay V adds an exemplary embedding into a treatment process and a test in a live treatment. Essays VI and VII investigate factors influencing vocational teachers’ attitude towards inclusion. Essay VI is the pilot study. The inclusion-related attitudes of teachers are considered to be essential predictors for their pedagogical and inclusion-related perception and action in inclusive lessons as well as for the teaching success. The results show that previous experiences with inclusion, self-efficacy and the understanding of teaching and learning are the main predictors for a teacher’s personal willingness to act in an inclusive environment.