Research Article: Stakeholder-led understanding of the implementation of digital technologies within heart disease diagnosis: a qualitative study protocol
Abstract:
Introduction Cardiovascular diseases are highly prevalent among the UK population, and the quality of care is being reduced due to accessibility and resource issues. Increased implementation of digital technologies into the cardiovascular care pathway has enormous potential to lighten the load on the National Health Service (NHS), however, it is not possible to adopt this shift without embedding the perspectives of service users and clinicians. Methods and analysis A series of qualitative studies will be carried out with the aim of developing a stakeholder-led perspective on the implementation of digital technologies to improve holistic diagnosis of heart disease. This will be a decentralised study with all data collection being carried out online with a nationwide cohort. Four focus groups, each with 5–6 participants, will be carried out with people with lived experience of heart disease, and 10 one-to-one interviews will be carried out with clinicians with experience of diagnosing heart diseases. The data will be analysed using an inductive thematic analysis approach. Ethics and dissemination This study received ethical approval from the Sciences and Technology Cross Research Council at the University of Sussex (reference ER/FM409/1). Participants will be required to provide informed consent via a Qualtrics survey before being accepted into the online interview or focus group. The findings will be disseminated through conference presentations, peer-reviewed publications and to the study participants.
Introduction:
Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of global deaths and are highly prevalent across the world. 1 The situation in the UK is no different, with the British Heart Foundation reporting 7.6?million people living in the UK with a heart and circulatory disease in August 2022, and approximately 460 deaths a day. 2 In addition to debilitating cardiovascular symptoms, individuals suffering from CVDs often experience a diminished quality of life, 3–5 financial burdens from medication and treatments, 6–9…
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