Facing Challenges in Virtual Healthcare Teams: a Scoping Review

Abstract

Health is an indispensable human right as declared in the World Health Organization constitution in 1946. This right was endangered by the outbreak of COVID-19 which induced strict quarantine measures to prevent the spread of disease, overloaded the healthcare networks, and caused the shortage of personnel. The interest in virtual care steadily rose even before the COVID-19 virus outbreak, but pandemics turned the growing interest into a need. While the demand for virtual care provision is high, the segment of virtual care is quite weighty, and both providers and patients agree that virtual care is inevitable at least for some part of care and some medical conditions.

The purpose of this study is to provide the basis for the further improvement of the delivery of virtual healthcare with the future expansion of healthcare technologies. The aim of the study is to explore qualitatively the challenges that members of virtual healthcare teams face while working with adult patients. The expected outcome is to synthesise the evidence of revealed data concerning the challenges and problems of virtual healthcare teams working with adults in the period 2018-2023. The research question is formulated as “What are the challenges faced by the members of healthcare teams in virtual settings while caring for adult patients?”

This master’s thesis was accomplished as a scoping review according to Joanna Briggs Institute with a predefined protocol. The search was performed in six related databases (PubMed, Science Direct, CINAHL-EBSCOhost, ProQuest, Wiley Online Library, and BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine). A complementary manual search was also utilized. Critical appraisal tools were applied to the selected studies. Subsequently, the three-step screening process was used (screening by title, abstract, and full-text) with the application of predetermined inclusion criteria (studies in English in 2018-2023, participants are members of healthcare teams working in virtual settings) and exclusion criteria (reviews, editorials, commentaries, opinions, conference reports, blogs were excluded).

Overall, 1991 studies were found, and 25 articles (n=25) were selected for this scoping review after screening. The details of the search process are presented according to the PRISMA Extension for Scoping reviews guidelines in the PRISMA-ScR flow diagram. With the utilization of thematic analysis, six themes of reported challenges were revealed. These are challenges in the implementation of virtual care, technology- and patient-related challenges, challenges in virtual team dynamics, challenges impacting virtual teams’ members, and organization-related challenges.

Recognizing the challenges reported by members of the virtual healthcare teams can help organizations in developing working strategies for the provision of high-quality care and avoid costly problems. The findings of the thesis support the conclusions of previous research that the numerous challenges in virtual care delivery may obstruct the realization of the basic human right to health and should be addressed. The review may serve as a precursor for further studies in the complex and emerging field of virtual healthcare. With the synthesised evidence presented in this scoping review, policymakers and providers of virtual health care can formulate detailed questions that can be answered in further studies.