Doctors Remain Slow to Use Email with Patients According to a recent Kantar Study, only 28% of physicians are currently using email to communicate with their patients. And this percentage has not significantly moved in the last two years. Surprisingly, there is no real difference in email usage that corresponds to a physician’s age, as...
Determining the Limits of Telemedicine Telemedicine access and options continue to expand as hospitals, clinicians, and patients get more comfortable with the idea of a telephone or web-enabled video conference substituting for an in-person office visit. Telemedicine has also been touted as a way to combat the shortage of primary care services in some rural...
Ex-Google Health Chief Launches Online Community for Cancer Patients Roni Zeiger recently left Google and teamed with Gilles Frydman, founder of the Association of Cancer Online Resources (ACOR). ACOR is the world’s largest collection of online cancer communities serving patients of all types of cancer. Site members can access information on clinical trials, learn about various...
Vetting Online Health Information As reported on The Doctor Weighs In, we are all aware how prevalent searching for health information online has become in our society. In fact, a 2012 Pew Health & Internet Research study reports that 60% of adults have done this in the last year. However, it is apparent that the...
Digital Health May Alleviate PCP Shortage The advances in digital health could play a significant role in bridging the shortage of primary care physicians in the US. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the US could have a PCP shortage of up to 65,00 doctors by 2025. Since a primary function of the...
Designing Mobile Apps that Patients Actually Want Here’s another great blog post from KevinMD, one of the leading voices on physician’s use of social media. Apps designed to help patients manage their health are a promising new tool, however, developers would be well served to discover what patients expect in an app to ensure it...
Tracking Pills to Increase Adherence Nearly half of Americans do not take prescription drugs as prescribed by their physician. Through either failing to refill medication, skipping doses, or stopping regimens altogether, it is estimated that non-adherence to drug therapy costs the US healthcare system approximately $290 billion each year. To combat this problem, healthcare providers...
10 Myths of Healthcare Reform As we near the second half of 2013 and the implementation of many of the Affordable Care Act provisions, many sources of information are reporting that Americans are both uninformed and misinformed about what the ACA will mean for their healthcare. Dr. Paul Keckley, Executive Director for the Deloitte Center...
Big Pharma: There is nothing evil about making money Big Pharma’s greedy reputation is not all earned, as one doctor opines here, as all industries are designed to produce profits. And, certainly, pharma has done plenty to deserve the lack of public trust. However, some of the constraints the pharma industry is forced to work...
Majority of Doctors Oppose Full Access to Your Own EHR This headline is a little bit deceiving, as it is not just a majority of physicians who do not want you to access your own health records online, it is a convincing majority. Harris Interactive recently surveyed 3,700 doctors across 8 countries and 69% of...
Healthcare CEOs Look to Increase Consumer Engagement According to a global survey among CEOs undertaken by PricewaterhouseCoopers, healthcare CEOs are increasing their engagement activities with all stakeholders, and see this as a major priority for the future. Traditionally, healthcare has been slower than other industries in proactively reaching its consumers, however the industry is...
Why You Can’t Tweet Your Doctor Just as consumers increasingly look to the Internet for health-related information and communication, doctors are looking to be more active online as well. According to the newly released “Health Online 2013” by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, nearly 75% of Internet users aged 18-64 are searching online...
