JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 19, 2020 THE IMPACT OF USING E-HEALTH ON PATIENT SATISFACTION FROM A PHYSICIAN-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP PERSPECTIVE This research is completed under patronage of Petra University Dr. Yasmin Sakka1, Dr. Dina Qarashay2 1Faculty of Administrative & Financial Sciences/Management, Information Systems Department/University of Petra 2Medical Health Center/University of Petra Received: 14 March 2020 Revised and Accepted: 8 July 2020 ABSTRACT: This study aims to determine how e-health impacts physician-patient relationship by evaluating patients’ perceptions in terms of trust, reliability, communication, service quality, time and cost, and control and improvement aspects of the relationship. The aggregate outcome of the study examines patient readiness to use electronic two-way communication between patient and physician in Jordanian healthcare sector. The theoretical model has been constructed post a review of related previous literature to identify the dependent and independent variables of the study. Data was collected by means of questionnaire survey of patients visiting private hospitals in Amman, Jordan using a simple random sampling method (N=344). The results of this research revealed that the perception of Jordanians of e-Health physician-patient relationship is significantly positive. This perception comes with the belief that e-Health will improve the relationship, save time and money and improve the quality of care. I. INTRODUCTION There is a wealth of research data that supports the benefits of effective communication and health outcomes for patients and healthcare teams. The connection that a patient feels with his physician can ultimately improve their health mediated through participation in their care, adherence to treatment, and patient self-management. E-Health through variety of tools is gaining popularity globally as well as in Jordan due increased penetration of internet and the use of smart phones. Patients in Jordan readily accept receiving lab reports, x-rays, medical records as well as receiving doctor appointment confirmation messages through their smart phones or in other forms of electronic communication. This is largely true for the private sector and is little evidenced in the public healthcare sector. eHealth tools, therefore, are technologies that may include electronic medical records (EMRs), personal health records (PHRs), mobile apps, patient portals, information repositories, and many other internet- based programs or software used to help patients monitor and manage their health. Previous research on the topic of e-Health investigated a variety of issues such as use of social media, attitude of healthcare professionals, barriers of use and patients’ attitudes. This paper aims to investigate the level of trust and satisfaction in e-Health from the patients’ point of view. The researchers believe that patients’ acceptance based on essential factors affecting healthcare delivery, will shed a light towards the direction of promoting e- Health utilization. Physician-patient relationship is at the core and is the most important component of e-Health and thus needs to be understood more clearly for the total e-Health to work successfully. 1.1 Review of the Literature In a study by Huang, Edgar, Dunbar, Christina, (2013) found that the flow of information on hospital Facebook pages, and especially twitter pages, is dominantly one-way, nevertheless, hospitals, especially larger ones, have made great effort to interact with their Facebook visitors while marketing themselves. The more Likes and posts the hospital will attract, the more people will comment on the hospital posts, and the more the hospital will get recommended. In addition, the Study demonstrates that using social media, as a two-way communication channel seems to be much more effective for hospitals to connect to their visitors than using those as a one-way marketing tool. Also confirmed by Manderscheid & Wukitsch, (2014) that a national effort has promoted a shared vision for improving the health of all Americans in a very fragmented health care delivery system. This paper describe how effectively, Healthy People 2020, has developed in a changing environment, how the new digital communication strategy for Healthy People 2020 has changed the national landscape around this initiative, and 3034 JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 19, 2020 how the further evolution of communication technology will continue to enhance the impact of this initiative at the state, country, local, and personal levels through the end of the decade . Another study by Muller & Khoo (2014) found that non-face-to-face physical activity interventions effectively promote physical activity in older adults. Physical activity is effective in preventing chronic diseases, increasing quality of life and promoting general health in older adults, but older adults are not sufficiently active to gain those benefits. Novel and economically viable way to promote physical activity in older adults is through non- face-to-face interventions . A paper presented at Annual Global Healthcare Conference by Huang, Edgar & Wang, Jing & Liu, Tianjiao. (2014). Interactive E-Health Tools for Patients on Chinese Hospitals’ Web Sites concludes that comprehensively implementing the most important interactive e-health tools on Chinese hospital websites today will help the hospitals provide quality healthcare regardless of the hospital’s institution type, ownership nature, and ranking. And developing a systematic on-line marketing and communication strategy, helps patients more easily find the information about hospital, access and understand their medical records, and have a user-friendly patient education about their symptoms and medical procedures . Another study by Olok & Yagos, (2015) found that the majority of health care professionals has positive attitudes toward e-health attributes (mean 3.5). The level of skills was predictor of ICT used among health care professionals (r=.522, p‹.001), however, attitudes towards e-health attributes didn’t contribute significantly in predicting e-health use. The findings suggest the need for hospital’s managements to strengthen e-health care delivery in northern Uganda . From the standpoint of De vear, Peeters, Barbers, Schellevis, Rademakers & Francke (2015) that the acceptance of e-health can be increased by informing people about the potential benefits of e-health and letting them practice with the application. Special attention should be paid to people with less education and people who have not used the internet before . Also, from point of view by Obasola, (2015) that the prevalence of the application of mobile phone for maternal and child health (MCH) care and the influence of the use information and communication technology (ICT) for delivering MCH information and services to target population. There is a need for more application of ICT for MCH care from pilot initiatives to interventions involving all stakeholders on a sub-regional scale. These interventions should also adopt an integrated approach that takes care of the information needs at every stage along the continuum of care. It is anticipated that the study would be useful in the evolution and implementation of future ICT- based programs for MCH in the region . Also confirmed by (Kampmeijer 2016) [11] that e-heath tools are not only used by older adults in diverse health promotion programs, but also outside formal programs to monitor and improve their health. The latter is hardly studied. The successful use of e-health/m-health tools in health promotion programs for older adults greatly depends on the older adult’s motivation and support that older adults receive when using e-health and m-health tools. A study by (Van der, Meij 2016) [26] concluded that in the majority of the studies, e-health leads to similar or improved clinical patient-related outcomes compared to only face to face perioperative care for patients who have undergone various forms of surgery. However, due to the low or moderate quality of many studies, the results should be interpreted with caution. A paper by (Chali, Kalegele 2018) [3] the authors propose a Data Exchange Component (DEC) that provides a platform to connect a mobile app with multiple eHRs. The motivation here is that utilization of mobile devices in healthcare is increasing every day. Deployment of the DEC in this manner is designed to leverage and capitalize on the high penetration of mobile phones (devices) in the healthcare delivery. This is due to the wide range of capabilities and uses of mobile devices especially mobile phones. The study concluded that achieving interoperability between two or more eHRs is still a challenge in both developing and developed countries. Yet, interoperability of eHRs continues to be an important aspect towards delivering good health care services. Efforts among health care stakeholders, practitioners, researchers, etc. are still directed toward achieving interoperability among eHRs. A study by (Jalghoum, and Khasawneh, 2016) [29], ―An Empirical Research of the Challenges to E-Health Initiative in Jordan‖. The study found that there was a huge impact on the development of the e-health in Jordan and consequently e-health leaders should come up with innovative strategies and change management techniques that can help in managing or reducing the effect of these particular issues in order to ensure a smooth and successful implementation the e-health