Most Americans believe health information technology (HIT) can improve personal health behaviors. What will turbo-charge this level of consumer health engagement will be the ability for people to access HIT in the places they’re not currently available: these sites include drug stores, grocery stores, health clubs, recreation centers, schools, and other community-based venues.
The fact that 61% of American adults are pro-health information technology comes from a new survey published by the Career College Association with TechAmerica. The survey polled 2,175 U.S. adults to assess mainstream Americans’ views on health care information technology outside of the US Capitol Beltway and health IT wonk circles.
Three of four U.S. adults believe a fully implemented HIT system will have a positive outcome for healthcare quality and access, while 64 percent believe it will have a positive outcome on healthcare costs for patients. There is widespread agreement of opinion across gender, age group, educational attainment, household income and marital status.
Note that health citizens’ collective positive sentiments toward HIT cross age, gender, and socioeconomic status.
Most health citizens see HIT as a personal health enabler, as well: 3 in 5 Americans (61%) believe that people would adopt healthier behaviors if, “IT systems and well-trained personnel to help them use the technology were more widely available in venues such as drug stores, health clubs, recreation centers, school and other places readily accessible to the public.”
This means that people recognize that they can be health-empowered and -engaged by using health information and tools. This finding echoes a survey conducted earlier this year by Deloitte which found that 2 in 3 Americans like the idea of home health monitoring, as well as communicating “my numbers” back to my health provider for more continuous monitoring and support.
As health citizens learn to embrace HIT for managing personal health issues, suppliers to the industry – pharma and life science companies, medical device developers, and home health vendors – will need to take a page out of consumer goods’ marketers playbooks. The opportunity is to deliver valuable health information to consumers where they live, play, work, and shop.
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