Digital transition in rural emergency medicine: Impact of job satisfaction and workload on communication and technology acceptance

Joachim P. Hasebrook; Leonie Michalak; Dorothea Kohnen; Bibiana Metelmann; Camilla Metelmann; Peter Brinkrolf; Steffen Flessa; Klaus Hahnenkamp

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0280956

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionFebruary 16, 2022
28 Jul 2022 Decision Letter - Avanti Dey, Editor Transfer Alert This paper was transferred from another journal. As a result, its full editorial history (including decision letters, peer reviews and author responses) may not be present. PONE-D-22-04801Digital transition in rural emergency medicine: Impact of job satisfaction and workload on communication and technology acceptancePLOS ONE Dear Dr. Hasebrook, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Can you please address the reviewer's concerns below? Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 10 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Avanti Dey, PhD Staff Editor PLOS ONE Journal requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf. 2. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent. In the ethics statement in the Methods and online submission information, please ensure that you have specified what type you obtained (for instance, written or verbal, and if verbal, how it was documented and witnessed). If your study included minors, state whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians. If the need for consent was waived by the ethics committee, please include this information. 3. Please update your submission to use the PLOS LaTeX template. The template and more information on our requirements for LaTeX submissions can be found at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/latex. 4. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: “This research has been funded by a €5.38 million grant from Germany’s Innovation Fund (01NVF16004). Ethical approval BB 044/17 has been granted from Ethics Commission University Medicine Greifswald.” We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: “All authors participated in the funded project. This research has been funded by a €5.38 million grant from Germany’s Innovation Fund (Innovationsfonds des Gemeinsamen Bundesausschusses, G-BA) under number 01NVF16004. URL: https://innovationsfonds.g-ba.de/projekte/neue-versorgungsformen/landrettung-zukunftsfeste-notfallmedizinische-neuausrichtung-eines-landkreis.63 The funding institution had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.” Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 5. Thank you for stating the following in your Competing Interests section: “All authors declare no competing interests.” Please complete your Competing Interests on the online submission form to state any Competing Interests. If you have no competing interests, please state ""The authors have declared that no competing interests exist."", as detailed online in our guide for authors at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submit-now This information should be included in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 6. In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. PLOS defines a study's minimal data set as the underlying data used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. All PLOS journals require that the minimal data set be made fully available. For more information about our data policy, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability. Upon re-submitting your revised manuscript, please upload your study’s minimal underlying data set as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and include the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers within your revised cover letter. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. Any potentially identifying patient information must be fully anonymized. Important: If there are ethical or legal restrictions to sharing your data publicly, please explain these restrictions in detail. Please see our guidelines for more information on what we consider unacceptable restrictions to publicly sharing data: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. Note that it is not acceptable for the authors to be the sole named individuals responsible for ensuring data access. We will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide in your cover letter. 7. Your ethics statement should only appear in the Methods section of your manuscript. If your ethics statement is written in any section besides the Methods, please delete it from any other section. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: No ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: This is a potentially interesting study and the author(s) tried to address this research issue in rural emergency medicine. Specifically, the title “Digital transition in rural emergency medicine: Impact of job satisfaction and workload on communication and technology acceptance”. However, this manuscript does satisfy the rigor and precision required for the work. I think the most important reason is that this paper clarity in theoretical support in Introduction section and hereafter in the literature review as well as implications all look good and properly well-designed study. Some comments and suggestions for improvement are as follows. In the abstract section: this sentence can be revised “Data were collected via machine readable questionnaires issued to 755 persons (411 pre, 344 post), of which 304 or 40.3% of these persons responded (194 pre, 115 post)”. At page 7, in design section, “During the first phase of the study (pre), 411 questionnaires were issued over a period of three months, of which 194 completed and evaluable questionnaires were returned (response rate 47.2%).” Is there any proper reason of lower response? Although, the response rate for any given survey may be one of the least important factors in analysing your results. There is no "accepted" response rate. It is accurate to say the higher the better, though. But author(s) needs to provide the proper reason and justification on this issue. Telephone surveys historically had the highest response rates, but they were also the most expensive. Old fashioned snail mail surveys had the lowest response rates, but they were cheaper. Technology continues to change survey research methods. Moreover, your response rate may differ depending on your population and geographic area. So researcher goal is not a high response rate, but the representation of the population of interest and low non-response bias (your entire data collection instrument affects this: population of interest, sampling, survey type, questions, benefit for the respondent, etc). But in your case situation is entirely different. So, you need to provide justification from your context. I hope you understand the importance of response rate in study. Sometimes researcher easily ignore the importance of this. So don’t be. One last thing. For example: “Based on extensive preliminary studies published elsewhere [54-56], we combined these aspects in a polarity profile, which includes questions to be scored from 1 (positive pole) to 10 (negative pole; see table 2). An example question concerning support from colleagues reads as follows: "For my work I get sufficient appreciation and support from my colleagues" (positive pole=1) or "My work is not appreciated and unnecessarily criticized by my colleagues" (negative pole=10). The scale is highly reliable with Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.91 in this and 0.78 in prior studies [56].” Based on the preliminary studies published elsewhere? Is there any justification from the literature? According to my point of view, it is not necessary you combine the variables into the same or similar scale since they are measuring different constructs. Once they have been appropriately sectionalized and the items in the different sections have been content validated, it's okay. However, the reliably coefficient of each of the sections in line with the various variables under investigation should be separately calculated and results of the data collected from the use of the questionnaire should be reported separately in line with the variables and research objectives. I believe the author(s) should first address these fundamental flaws. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280956.r001
Revision 1
26 Sep 2022 Author Response We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and recommendations helping us to improve our manuscript! All changes in the manuscript (tracked version) have been highlighted in yellow. In what follows, we respond to the specific comments of the reviewer, individually. We have highlighted the aspects of the reviewers comments we are referring to in our response. Reviewers’ comments are shown in italics. � Our response is marked with an � This is a potentially interesting study and the author(s) tried to address this research issue in rural emergency medicine. Specifically, the title “Digital transition in rural emergency medicine: Impact of job satisfaction and workload on communication and technology acceptance”. However, this manuscript does satisfy the rigor and precision required for the work. I think the most important reason is that this paper clarity in theoretical support in Introduction section and hereafter in the literature review as well as implications all look good and properly well-designed study. Some comments and suggestions for improvement are as follows. In the abstract section: this sentence can be revised “Data were collected via machine readable questionnaires issued to 755 persons (411 pre, 344 post), of which 304 or 40.3% of these persons responded (194 pre, 115 post)”. � We have added this sentence in the abstract and adapted the abstract in order to make purpose and implications of the study clearer. At page 7, in design section, “During the first phase of the study (pre), 411 questionnaires were issued over a period of three months, of which 194 completed and evaluable questionnaires were returned (response rate 47.2%).” Is there any proper reason of lower response? Although, the response rate for any given survey may be one of the least important factors in analysing your results. There is no "accepted" response rate. It is accurate to say the higher the better, though. But author(s) needs to provide the proper reason and justification on this issue. Telephone surveys historically had the highest response rates, but they were also the most expensive. Old fashioned snail mail surveys had the lowest response rates, but they were cheaper. Technology continues to change survey research methods. Moreover, your response rate may differ depending on your population and geographic area. So researcher goal is not a high response rate, but the representation of the population of interest and low non-response bias (your entire data collection instrument affects this: population of interest, sampling, survey type, questions, benefit for the respondent, etc). But in your case situation is entirely different. So, you need to provide justification from your context. I hope you understand the importance of response rate in study. Sometimes researcher easily ignore the importance of this. So don’t be. � We added an explanation about the response rate as well as a comparison to the response rates found in similar studies. We also discuss the issue of a possible non-response bias. We added an explanation why the response rate in the post-phase of the study is lower than in the pre-phase. One last thing. For example: “Based on extensive preliminary studies published elsewhere [54-56], we combined these aspects in a polarity profile, which includes questions to be scored from 1 (positive pole) to 10 (negative pole; see table 2). An example question concerning support from colleagues reads as follows: "For my work I get sufficient appreciation and support from my colleagues" (positive pole=1) or "My work is not appreciated and unnecessarily criticized by my colleagues" (negative pole=10). The scale is highly reliable with Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.91 in this and 0.78 in prior studies [56].” Based on the preliminary studies published elsewhere? Is there any justification from the literature? � We added the exact references and clarified which reliability was found in what study. According to my point of view, it is not necessary you combine the variables into the same or similar scale since they are measuring different constructs. Once they have been appropriately sectionalized and the items in the different sections have been content validated, it's okay. � We calculated and stated reliability (Cronbach’s Alpha) of each section of the survey we used as a factor in the analyses in text. However, the reliably coefficient of each of the sections in line with the various variables under investigation should be separately calculated and results of the data collected from the use of the questionnaire should be reported separately in line with the variables and research objectives. I believe the author(s) should first address these fundamental flaws. � We arranged the order, in which the results are presented and added 3 tables reporting the results in line with the hypotheses and the analyses testing them. We moved an additional table (breakdown of means) to appendix 3. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: resonse to reviewer PLOS ONE.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280956.r002
27 Oct 2022 Decision Letter - Muhammad Rafiq, Editor PONE-D-22-04801R1Digital transition in rural emergency medicine: Impact of job satisfaction and workload on communication and technology acceptancePLOS ONE Dear Dr. Hasebrook, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 11 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Muhammad Rafiq, Ph.D Guest Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments: Thank you for submitting your paper about a “Digital transition in rural emergency medicine: Impact of job satisfaction and workload on communication and technology acceptance” to PLOS ONE journal. It is clear that a great deal of effort went into this paper, and we appreciate you entrusting your work with us. In terms of procedure, I have sent your manuscript out to reviewer(s) who are expert on the topics that your study focuses on. I have also carefully read the manuscript myself and have added some additional suggestions. As you can see, the reviewers have positive comments about your paper, including that it is a timely and relevant topic, and especially its added value in terms of shortcomings in the current study. Yet, he/she also sees some clear limitations in your paper and provides constructive feedback on how your paper might be improved. I believe the comments and suggestions are clear. I also provide general comments on your paper below, so I will not repeat reviewers’ comments here. The concept of digital transition is undoubtedly exciting and of interest to readers. However, I suggest authors give a detail discussion on the future research directions. Specifically, the research has not explained the implications of the research either for further research, practice or society, it is better that at the end of the study there is a sub discussion about this. In the current form, this study was not enough to explain the position of the results of the study to previous studies. Regarding methodology, it is also need serious improvement, mainly on how the researcher/s get the results and more in-depth addressing for the validity issues. Using a well-known methods used by previous researchers would solve the problem. As you can see, there are quite some serious challenges that you would need to improve upon. The reviewer(s) and myself have made an effort to provide you with clear and constructive directions, aimed at helping you further improve your work, which is an important goal of the editorial process at PLOS ONE. I look forward to receiving your revised manuscript, and I wish you all the best in rewriting it. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #2: (No Response) ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #2: The authors have put considerable efforts in the improvement of their manuscript. My few suggestions are mentioned below: The introduction section should depict the need for this study. It must establish the rational of grouping these variables. The authors should also provide details regarding the theories used to underpin the relationship. There is a need for theoretical model of this study. The authors should highlight the hypotheses in a way that those should correspond to the literature. The authors should proofread the manuscript once again for any potential errors. ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280956.r003
Revision 2
10 Dec 2022 Author Response PONE-D-22-04801R1 Digital transition in rural emergency medicine: Impact of job satisfaction and workload on communication and technology acceptance Rebuttal Letter Dear reviewers, dear editors, dear Dr. Rafiq, we are grateful for your helpful comments and the opportunity to improve our manuscript. In what follows, we go through your requirements, step by step and in line with the structure of the manuscript (that is, from “introduction” to “discussion”). Sincerely, Joachim Hasebrook (in the name of all authors) ______________________________________ - The introduction section should depict the need for this study and must establish the rational of grouping these variables We added a paragraph about the need for this study, and why job satisfaction, workload and communication are essential. We also added theoretical background about these aspects and their interrelation. - The authors should also provide details regarding the theories used to underpin the relationship We added details about the theories underpinning the different factors and their relationship. - There is a need for theoretical model of this study We added a section about the “Research model and Hypotheses” explaining the theoretical model behind our research. - The authors should highlight the hypotheses in a way that those should correspond to the literature. In the same section, we derived our hypothesis from the theoretical model and explicitly stated which references are related to the different hypotheses. - in-depth addressing for the validity issues We added paragraphs in the section “Material” about each instrument (job satisfaction and demands, technology acceptance, knowledge sharing) with details not only about reliability but also validity of the instruments applied in our study. - how the researcher/s get the results We added a paragraph in the section “Procedure” to explain how the results were gathered with machine-readable surveys, on site. - explain the position of the results of the study to previous studies We added text passages and paragraphs in the section “Discussion” to lay out, where our results support and contradict previous studies. - give a detail discussion on the future research directions. Specifically, the research has not explained the implications of the research We added paragraphs to both sections, “Future Research” and “Practical Implications”, to explain future research directions and their implications. - The authors should proofread the manuscript once again for any potential errors. We asked a professional proofreading service to improve our manuscript. - We recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io The complete data set has been uploaded as supplementary file (S3) Thanks very much to the editor and the reviewer for the opportunity to revise and improve our manuscript! Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280956.r004
12 Jan 2023 Decision Letter - Muhammad Rafiq, Editor Digital transition in rural emergency medicine: Impact of job satisfaction and workload on communication and technology acceptance PONE-D-22-04801R2 Dear Dr. Hasebrook, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Muhammad Rafiq, Ph.D Guest Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Thank you for resubmitting your manuscript to Plos One. Once again, it is clear that a great deal of effort went into this revising your work and meeting the reviewers’ requests. In terms of procedure, I have sent your manuscript out to the reviewer, and I have also carefully read it again myself as a reviewer and editor. As you can see, the reviewer is positive about your revised manuscript and feels that you have done a great job in working with their previous comments. I agree with this conclusion: you have obviously done a good job at improving your manuscript in many ways. I applaud you for this great effort in revising your manuscript. Because of this, I am optimistic about publishing your work in Plos One in the near future. Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #2: No ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280956.r005
Formally Accepted
16 Jan 2023 Acceptance Letter - Muhammad Rafiq, Editor PONE-D-22-04801R2 Digital transition in rural emergency medicine: Impact of job satisfaction and workload on communication and technology acceptance Dear Dr. Hasebrook: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Muhammad Rafiq Guest Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280956.r006

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .