Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Are patients ready for this new era?

We have three major factors that are affecting the way patients look for health information online: Accsses ,Literacy and Personal responsability. Access is not such a big barrier as it was years ago. As of this year 74% of the US population has internet access, but  we still have 26% of people who are not quite getting into the change and we dont know how long it is going to take for them to adapt to these innovations of technology. eHealth Literacy plays an important  role in which patients are using internet to manage their health. Many patients with internet access dont know where to look up health information or dont have the skills necessary to get good health care access online. Finally if the patient feels that it is his or her personal responsability to manage their health ,they will look up information to share with the provider during the interaction. Unfortunatelly some patients feel that the physicians have the authority when recommending treatments and managing their health. Again, there are many factors affecting how people engage in managing their health online. It may take some time until 100% of the population start making use of the technological resources available.
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1 comment:

  1. Apothecary In TrainingNovember 4, 2011 at 6:08 PM

    I feel that the growing divide between the wealthy and the poor, coupled with the massive increase in the health technology available (particularly the information available on the internet and mobile health applications) will only make the adoption of health technology by those in unfortunate socioeconomic positions less likely.

    While I completely agree with you that the general trend indicates that we are moving towards managing our health online, I don't feel that the technological resources available are appropriate for the segments of the population with the lowest access and health/general literacy.

    In the future I would like to see this issue addressed to a greater extent, in concert with the growth of healthcare technology.

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