Physicians, are you savvy about the digital health technologies your patients use? Do you make it easy for them to interact with you digitally and share the health data they generate? If not, you need to move ahead and get there already. While you may be satisfied with sidestepping the whole subject, patients aren’t, a recent report suggests.
As you probably know already a growing number of patients, most notably millennials, are integrating digital health tools into their everyday lives.
Research from Rock Health, which surveyed about 4,000 consumers, found that the share of respondents using at least one digital tool (such as telemedicine, digital health tracking apps or wearables) hit 87% last year. To get a sense of how impressive this is, bear in mind that just five years ago, only a tiny handful of consumers had given any of these tools a try.
What’s also of note is that some of these consumers were willing to skip insurance and pay out of pocket for digital care. One particularly clear example of this involves live video telemedicine; Sixty-nine percent of consumers who paid out of pocket for such consults said they were “extremely satisfied” with the experience.
Patients who reported having a chronic health condition seemed less likely to use digital tools to track their health metrics. Case in point: When it came to blood pressure tracking, just 11% captured this data with a digital app or journal. However, this may reflect the higher-than-average of those diagnosed with elevated pressures, a senior population with a lower level of tech sophistication.
Lest all of this sound intimidating, there’s at least some good news here. Apparently, a full 86% of respondents said that they’d be willing to share data with their physician, a much larger share than those who would exchange data with a health plan (58%) or pharmacy (52%). In other words, they trust you, which is a big asset under these circumstances.
If you want to dive into digital health more deeply, here’s a few obvious places to start:
- Link in-person and telemedicine visits: Rock Health found that a whopping 92% pf respondents who had an in-person visit first were satisfied with their video visit.
- Be vigilant about data security: Almost 9 out of 10 consumers participating in the survey said that they would be willing to share data with you. Don’t lose that trust to a health data breach; it will be hard if not impossible to get it back.
- Bring chronically-ill seniors on board: While this group may not be terribly inclined to digitize their healthcare, doing so can help you treat them more effectively, so you’ll probably want to make that point up front.
Like it or not, wearables, fitness bands, mobile health apps, and other digital health tools have arrived. It’s no longer a matter of if you take advantage of them, but when and how. Don’t be the last practice in your neighborhood that just doesn’t get it.