The usability testing of the integrated electronic healthcare services for diabetes mellitus patients during the pandemic in Indonesia

Investigating Community Pharmacist Experiences with Telepharmacy in the Absence of Regulatory Support in Indonesia

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Telepharmacy has been increasingly used in Indonesian community pharmacies despite the absence of a policy regulating the services. In tandem with the lack of standardized pharmaceutical care, providing telepharmacy services may vary across community pharmacies. This study investigates the contemporary practice of telepharmacy in Indonesian community pharmacy.

METHODS

A cross-sectional survey using a validated online questionnaire was conducted. The targeted participants were community pharmacists who claimed to have provided telepharmacy service daily. The participants were approached using purposive sampling and extended using the accidental sampling method. The questionnaire asked about several activities that pharmacists do when delivering telepharmacy services. The data were subsequently analyzed using descriptive statistics.

RESULTS

Overall, 250 pharmacists participated in the online survey. Most respondents were female (73.6%) and less than 41 years old (78.6%). Despite respondents claiming to know telepharmacy (70%), more than half (52%) never attended any training and workshops on telepharmacy. Chat messaging apps were common platforms for telepharmacy (87.2%). Low patient uptake was evident in most pharmacies (74.4%). More than 96% of respondents ensured the accuracy of patient data before delivering the service. This includes verifying patient prescriptions and checking the prescribed medicines with patient history. However, fewer pharmacists frequently documented patient data (36%), communicated care plans to patients (22%), provided drug information (2.9%), and monitored outcomes (29.2%).

CONCLUSION

The lack of regulation has contributed to unstandardized telepharmacy practice. Despite the untapped potential, the growth of telepharmacy services in Indonesian community pharmacies is uncertain, with ongoing support from the regulation needed.

Evaluation of usability and user feedback to guide telepharmacy application development in Indonesia: a mixed-methods study

BACKGROUND

In Indonesia, the adoption of telepharmacy was propelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting the need for a user-friendly application to support both the general population and pharmacists in accessing healthcare services. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate usability and user feedback of a pioneering telepharmacy application known as Tanya Obat (translating to "Ask about Medications") in Indonesia, from the perspectives of the general population and pharmacists.

METHODS

A mixed-methods sequential study was conducted with the early-stage Tanya Obat application in Bandung City. Participants, including the general population and pharmacists, were instructed to use the application for a week. Questionnaires for the general population and pharmacists were distributed from March to May and February to June 2023, respectively. The System Usability Scale questionnaire was adopted to describe usability of the developed application. Further exploration of the quantitative results required collecting open-ended feedback to assess the impressions of the participants, difficulties encountered, and desired features for enhanced user-friendliness. The collected statements were summarized and clustered using thematic analysis. Subsequently, the association between the characteristics of participants and perceived usability was determined with the Chi-square test.

RESULT

A total of 176 participants, comprising 100 individuals from the general population and 76 pharmacists, engaged in this study. In terms of usability, the questionnaire showed that Tanya Obat application was on the borderline of acceptability, with mean scores of 63.4 and 64.1 from the general population and pharmacists, respectively. Additionally, open-ended feedback targeted at achieving a more compelling user experience was categorized into two themes, including concerns regarding the functionality of certain features and recommendations for improved visual aesthetics and bug fixes. No significant associations were observed between the characteristics of participants and perceived usability (p-value > 0.05).

CONCLUSION

The results showed that the perceived usability of Tanya Obat developed for telepharmacy was below average. Therefore, feature optimizations should be performed to facilitate usability of this application in Indonesia.