A national survey of 2,252 pharmacy
customers conducted by Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public
Health to explore patient behavior and interest in using the internet to
contact physicians reveals that healthcare isn’t quite ready for the
future.
Key findings were:
- 37 % of patients reported contacting their
physicians via email within the last six months and 18 % via Facebook.
- Older age was negatively associated with contacting
physicians using email or Facebook
- Non-white race (unspecified) and caregiver status were
positively associated with using email and Facebook
- Patients were interested in using Web-based tools to
fill prescriptions, track their own health, and access health information
(37–57 %), but few were currently doing so (4–8 %).
It is
interesting that while physicians are wary of contacting patients via social
media for issues such as liability, privacy, and lack of compensation, at least
half do already, though hard to say what the demographics of these responders’
physicians are. While it is critical to
safeguard patient information and physician privacy among other issues, health
care organizations do need to figure out how to take advantage of social
media. Although many have started to,
using messaging, accessing test results and personal information, etc, there
still is a long way to go before this void is filled.
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