PATIENTS COMFORTABLE with ROLE of COMPUTERS in HEALTH CARE

Patients say that they not only want computers to bring them customized medical information, they fully expect that in the future they will be able to rely on electronic technology for many routine medical issues, says a research team at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC).

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May 22, 2009 10:30 AM - The qualitative study, which is published in the June 2009 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found that patients want
- full access to all of their medical records
- are willing to make some privacy concessions in the interest of making their medical records completely transparent
- in the future, fully expect that computers will play a major role in their medical care, possibly substituting for face-to-face physician visits.

Focus groups for the study were held Boston, Denver, Portland, Maine; and Tampa, Florida. The locations were selected to represent various geographic areas, to include both rural and urban populations and to incorporate ethnic and cultural diversity, says BIDMC. Six of the eight groups (consisting of nine to 12 participants each) were made up of consumers. The last two groups were made up of health care professionals from Boston and Denver, assembled to provide their perspectives on the role of health information technology and to compare their opinions with those of consumers. In each case, participants were asked how they currently organize the information they need to manage their health and medical care, and explored how they would ideally like to manage and use this information, including how technologies could address any gaps.

"The discussions showed that, for the most part, consumers want computers to take into account their personal profiles in order to bring them customized information and advice," says the study's lead author Jan Walker, RN, MBA. "They also expect that technologies will 'watch' over them, monitoring their health and giving them real-time feedback, including communicating with clinicians when needed. Participants also said they expect computers to act as 'personal coaches,' and to foster self care."

New health technologies offer patients
- online access to parts of electronic medical records
- options for maintaining their personal histories
- support for day-to-day management of chronic illness

But when it comes to the future design and utility of these and other elements of care, teams of software engineers, graphic artists, and clinicians rarely solicit patient perspectives.