Study on time savings through digital skills

The Coalition Digivaardig in de Zorg conducted research in elderly care and general practice care into time savings achieved through digital skills. Professor Alexander van Deursen was involved as an external advisor. He reflects on the study and links it to digital inclusion (see box on the right). “Strengthening digital skills ensures that all employees can remain engaged.”

By Femke van den Berg, published in ICT & Health

As a professor at the University of Twente, Van Deursen holds the chair in Digital Inequality. From this chair, he runs the Centre for Digital Inclusion. One of the centre’s pillars is measuring digital skills. Reflecting on a large-scale study from 2012, he says:
“That was when I discovered that a great deal of time was being lost in the workplace due to employees’ insufficient digital skills and malfunctioning ICT.”

Large differences

The recently published study Time Savings through Digital Skills by the Coalition Digivaardig in de Zorg shows that time is still being lost in healthcare today due to a lack of digital skills among employees. In this study, Van Deursen contributed to the research design, measurement methods, and reporting.
“The differences between healthcare professionals are substantial when it comes to their digital skills,” he explains. “For example, in working with electronic client records, word processing, and data security. It turns out that some employees in elderly care and general practice need much more time to perform digital tasks than their colleagues.”

One eye-opener for Van Deursen was that less digitally skilled employees do not always dare to ask colleagues—such as ICT staff—for help. “They notice that there is often little patience for them. As a result, staff really experience a divide between people who are digitally skilled and those who are less so.”

Comparable outcome

In the 2012 study, more than 2,000 employees were asked to complete questionnaires in which they assessed their own digital skills. “The study by the Coalition Digivaardig in de Zorg, carried out by Zorgfocuz, used a different approach. In this case, 85 healthcare workers were observed while performing various digital tasks.”
Van Deursen continues: “This second study involved a smaller sample, which makes it difficult to draw ‘hard conclusions’. However, the method is more valid. And just like the 2012 study, it shows that there is still plenty of room for improvement when it comes to employees’ digital skills.”

Rapid developments

From the Centre for Digital Inclusion, Van Deursen works with a group of researchers on various issues. “We have three research lines,” he explains. “The first focuses on digital inequality among the population. The second looks at work: which digital skills do people need to perform their jobs properly? And the third concerns digital inclusion and new technologies, such as AI.”
The last line currently attracts a lot of attention because technological developments are progressing rapidly, says Van Deursen. “Artificial intelligence, in particular, is increasingly becoming part of everyday life, whether we like it or not.”

He observes that some people struggle to keep up with these rapid developments. “Factors such as age, level of education, income, language skills, and health play a role. Older people, the lower educated, people with low literacy skills, and people with disabilities are especially at risk of being excluded, partly because they often have less support in their immediate environment when it comes to digital matters.”

Risks of the digital transition

In healthcare, employees are increasingly confronted with diagnostics using data analysis from smart devices, Van Deursen explains. “It is important that they have the skills to work with new applications, devices, and systems. Otherwise, the entire digital transition in healthcare will be ineffective—and potentially risky.”

He elaborates: “In healthcare, there are many moral, ethical, and legal issues surrounding digitalisation, certainly compared to sectors such as transport and retail. Healthcare professionals deal extensively with privacy-sensitive information. Information security plays a major role. Moreover, if healthcare staff lack sufficient digital skills, this can lead to errors in records or incorrect interpretations of data. This undermines the quality of care and can have potentially serious consequences for patients.”

Increasing demands on patients

Van Deursen also notes that patients themselves are increasingly expected to have digital skills. “They may have to deal with patient portals, digital questionnaires, video consultations, wearables. On the one hand, this gives them much more autonomy and enhances self-reliance. On the other hand, there is also a group of patients who struggle greatly with these types of applications. This requires additional effort from healthcare professionals to help them learn how to use them.”

Key role of digital skills

To be able to work with all these new applications, strong digital skills are crucial, says Van Deursen. “These skills play a key role. They form the bridge between the use of digital tools and the outcomes you achieve with them.”
This does not only involve basic digital skills, but also critically searching for and evaluating information, and using online tools for better communication, collaboration, and negotiation. “It also includes the critical and strategic skills needed to properly understand and apply artificial intelligence systems and algorithms.”

Training and monitoring

A new insight is that digital skills still play a subordinate role in many organisations, according to Van Deursen. “Few measures are taken to improve these skills: managers often assume that employees will acquire them automatically. But this is often not the case.”

He advocates organising targeted training and support for staff to promote digital inclusion in the workplace. “It is important to support employees in using new digital systems and to invest in strengthening digital skills so that they can stay engaged. In addition, it is essential to continuously monitor digital skills and keep investing in improving them. This should be institutionalised: there should really be a continuous support programme.”

Recommendations

Van Deursen believes that the study Time Savings through Digital Skills contains valuable recommendations for board members, directors, and managers in healthcare. “For example: invest in digital skills training. And make sure this training focuses specifically on areas that often cause bottlenecks, such as effective file management, word processing skills, and efficient email use,” he lists.
“Also: facilitate courses in touch typing. In the long run, that can save a great deal of time in employees’ daily work.” Another important recommendation—already made in 2012—is that organisations should provide employees with an ICT buddy or digital coach: a colleague who enjoys helping others get started and can share practical tips.

Co-creation

Van Deursen also has a tip for follow-up research: “Employees are more motivated to learn something new if you allow them to think along about how they want to do so. So explore how you can develop interventions together with staff to improve digital skills. They often know best where the bottlenecks are.”