Service characteristics and treatment utilisation of guided internet delivered treatment at four hospitals - A descriptive comparative study

Background: Digital health interventions (DHI) have the potential to improve hospital resource utilization, contain costs and improve quality and access to health care, but their success rely on the organisational implementation. The operational, organisational and service delivery characteristics that leads to successful implementation of DHI are poorly understood. Objectives: This ongoing study will A) describe similarities and differences of organisational and service delivery characteristics of guided Internet-delivered treatment (eMeistring) at four Norwegian Health Enterprises, B) Analyse and compare referrals, patients and efficiency metrics across four Health Enterprises, and C) Discuss how organisation and implementation characteristics may support treatment utilisation and efficiency aspects of eMeistring. Methods: This is a naturalistic, descriptive comparative study of four Health Enterprises. Organisational and service delivery characteristics will be collected by questionnaires and interviews with leaders and staff. Efficiency characteristics include treatment utilisation (number of referrals and patients and adherence to treatment), self registered use of working hours by therapists and number of patients treated per therapist. Data will be presented and analysed primarily by descriptive statistics and comparison of the four centres. Results and conclusion: The study will present ideas on how the achieve an effective operation and organisation of guided Internet-delivered treatment. Preliminary result will be presented orally.