Needs and Concerns Regarding a Pediatric Palliative Telehealth App for Use in Palliative Home Care for…

StudyJMIR formative research· Jul 2026

Needs and Concerns Regarding a Pediatric Palliative Telehealth App for Use in Palliative Home Care for Adults Among Providers in Germany: Embedded Mixed Methods Study.

Rebekka Hocher, Sandra Weyandt, Jannik Zimmermann … Merlin Deckers

Palliative & End-of-LifeStudyClinical practiceQ2IF 2.6

Providers identified 13 distinct needs for adapting a pediatric telehealth app to adult care.

Needs and Concerns Regarding a Pediatric Palliative Telehealth App for Use in Palliative Home Care for Adults Among Providers in Germany: Embedded Mixed Methods Study.

Rebekka Hocher … Merlin Deckers

JMIR formative research · Jul 2026 · Q2 in General Medicine

Background

Specialized outpatient palliative care (specialized outpatient palliative care) provides home-based care for terminally ill patients and is associated with improved quality of life and prolonged survival.

Purpose

This study assesses the extent to which needs and concerns regarding digitalization in specialized outpatient palliative care for children are transferable to adult specialized outpatient palliative care, using the PalliDoc Mobile app as a case example.

Methods

Twenty-five members from both teams, who were recruited via the personal network of the authors, participated, representing urban and rural care areas in Germany.

n = 8

13

Results

13

needs

Adult palliative care teams identified 13 separate digitalization needs, led by voice-control features.

n = 8

More results

Additionally, functions relating to digitization and organizational tasks were viewed as predominantly helpful.

Unlike in pediatrics, telehealth functions like video contacts, telemetry, and electronic patient-reported outcome measures are neither used here now nor intended to be used in the future.

More results

The identified concerns predominantly addressed the potential risk of AI-assisted documentation (n=2 positive votes and n=7 negative votes) altering or distorting health care professionals' perception of information related to patients.

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Conclusion

Cross-setting telehealth applications may work, but they are no "plug-and-play solution." Needs and concerns in each setting should be addressed to guarantee customized services.

Needs and Concerns Regarding a Pediatric Palliative Telehealth App for Use in Palliative Home Care for Adults Among Providers in Germany: Embedded Mixed Methods Study.

Needs and Concerns Regarding a Pediatric Palliative Telehealth App for Use in Palliative Home Care for Adults Among Providers in Germany: Embedded Mixed Methods Study.

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