Experts agree e-health holds great promise
Unfortunately, survey finds public uneasy
Case managers are beginning to use the Internet for online research, communicating with patients and providers, and monitoring the health of chronically ill patients. As a nation, we seem to agree that the Internet holds great promise for streamlining health care delivery and improving health care access.
E-health experts from the nation’s leading academic medical centers, the federal government and e-Health companies gathered recently in Washington, DC, to debate the Internet’s potential for improving health care delivery in the United States at a meeting of the Academic Medicine and Managed Care Forum, an alliance of health care organizations. Unfortunately, a newly released national survey indicates that despite the Internet’s promise, it may be years before the public is ready to embrace e-Health applications.
"Facilitating public access to high-quality scientific information can play a very important role in improving health care for those who can get that information, and for those whose doctors can use it," notes Donald A. B. Lindberg, MD, director of the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. However, at the same time, Lindberg cautions that even with improvements in information networking, many medical and practical problems make it difficult in the short term to achieve "true equal access by all to the best care." (For further information about e-Health, see Case Management Advisor, May 2000 and Oct. 2000.)
E-Health experts present at the meeting shared their views on how the Internet is changing the face of health care delivery and its potential for future applications. Among those applications cited are:
• elimination of administrative hassles associated with health benefits;
• improved physician-patient communication via Internet;
• increased connectivity and seamless care delivery between providers and health plans due to electronic patient records.
In doc we trust
Yet, one of the greatest barriers to the future growth of e-Health applications may not be the need for further technical refinements, but rather the need to overcome consumer reluctance, according to the results of new Gallup survey commissioned by MedicAlert Foundation in Turlock, CA.
The Gallup survey is one of the first to check the pulse of the general public — not just Internet users — and underscores the grave concerns of many Americans about online privacy violations.
Findings of the national survey include:
• Only 7% of respondents report they are very willing to store or transmit personal health information on the Internet.
• Only 8% report they feel a Web site could be trusted with such information.
• Ninety percent report they would trust their physician to keep their personal health information private and secure.
• Sixty-six percent report they would trust a hospital to keep their personal health information private and secure.
• Forty-two percent report they would trust an insurance company to keep their personal health information private and secure.
• Thirty-five percent report they would trust a managed care company to keep their personal health information private and secure.
You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
- Award-winning Medical Content
- Latest Advances & Development in Medicine
- Unbiased Content