Workflow and communication, people, organizational policies and culture
confusion, anxiety
WEST
Whereas patients and HCPs were reported to be concerned about telemedicine hindering the patient-provider relationship [While other studies mainly focused on the doctor as the provider of the intervention, team-based care was provided at the polyclinic as teamlets. However, one patient experienced confusion as there was a lack of communication with the pharmacists, who usually supported the teamlets. Coordinating workflows with other support staff ensures patient safety in the form of timely supply of patients’ medications and can also help to maintain patients’ motivation for the intervention.Although there was divergence of HCPs’ opinions on whether the intervention helped with workload management, they agreed on the need to allocate more resources to prevent burnout, and for the intervention to be sustainable in the long run. Although geographical barrier is less of a concern in Singapore than in other countries where healthcare may not readily accessible, the COVID-19 pandemic has created an invisible barrier between HCPs and patients in the form of safe distancing and reallocation of clinic manpower to support COVID-19 operations and other priorities. Telemedicine, with adequate planning of resources and workflows, can bridge this barrier by sustaining BP management and providing care to patients even in times when physical visits are not possible [The study populations of previous studies were mainly from the West and may not be translated to the Singapore or Asian context. The interventions in these studies included monitoring, medication titration and contact initiated by patients. However, the PTEC-HT intervention required HCPs to initiate contact with patients through scheduled or unscheduled teleconsultation, which was not available in the referenced studies. This provided sufficient support right from the start, especially for patients with technology anxiety or low health or digital literacy. Teleconsultation can provide reassurance, improve patient education and health communication and contribute to behavior change, addressing the areas for future research raised by Fletcher et al. [As we focus on patient-centredness in the implementation and use of telemedicine interventions, we can incorporate principles of service design and human factor approaches to achieve greater impact and better experience for our patients and HCPs [