This speared a few days ago.
Are seniors really game for health IT?
Posted on Mar 12, 2015
By Michelle Ronan Noteboom, Contributing writer
Over Christmas, my 79-year-old father visited me for a few days and joined us for Christmas Eve mass. Just before the service started, my father’s phone rang. He quickly pulled the phone out of his pocket and silenced it. As he did, the people behind us started giggling and said, “Hey look! It’s a flip phone!”
It is a little funny to see my dad with his quaint flip phone, similar to the one I had about eight years ago. My father, who refuses to attempt texting and never checks his voicemail, will probably never switch to a smart phone since the flip phone already has more features than he’ll ever use.
A little background on my dad: He’s a former college professor who spent many years using computers for research, writing, and email. He’s not a technology novice, but he’s far from a sophisticated user: he has a list of passwords taped to his monitor and more than a few times he has told me he “lost” an email he created – only to find it later in that little folder labeled “drafts.”
In other words, his use and acceptance of technology is better than many seniors, but worse than some. And at age 79, he is in the segment of the population with the highest rates for healthcare utilization. His is also the segment least likely to urge their doctors to offer online scheduling tools, electronic access to test results, options for secure email communications and online viewing of their electronic medical record.
How anxious are seniors to take advantage of technologies that promise to extend care to more patients, to improve access to care, and engage patients with providers? A recent Accenture survey put the spotlight on "tech-savvy seniors," finding that two-thirds of those who place a high priority on technology want access to online healthcare services.
More here:
I really liked the last paragraph of the article:
“So all you healthcare technology folks targeting seniors for your next great app, please take note: If you thought clinicians were slow to embrace new technologies, wait until you meet my dad.”
Given the hope for the PCEHR was that the chronically ill would be major users this issue might turn out to need further thought.
David.
I think it should be more about getting everything ready as the tech savvy population gets older.. Same with clinicians.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty who still hand-write prescriptions and schedule appointments in a diary - but the trend is going digital, that is a fact.
Maybe we just need to re-evaluate our timelines for the e-health evolution more than anything?
There is avery different agenda from this anecdotal diminishment. The dependency model imposed on not olny the aged aged and infirm is also impose on the younger old (a gerontological terms usually applied to u to 75's). As one of this group(already 73) you might like to consider the governance and stereotyping issues raised by this issue for the (rather sharp, if older) lunch address members of the University of Melbourne Graduate House late last year. If that is of any interest try the video recording link on the front (news block area) of my website www.wigan.com. It is a considerable expansion of a paper I was asked to give(and publish) with IEEE Technology and Society ISTAs and publishing channel.. and in this i focus on the near-systematic exclusion of the older people from their own governance : a side effect of the kind of condescending dependency framing used in the article that you chose to cite. The slides are readily available on dropbox if requested. Frankly I have been forced to go to younger Professors explain what we need and want, outlining the research required, th techniques available, and the advantages of co design...it seems to be essential to stop the ever present dependency stereotype that makes th focus remediation and clinical recovery rater than actually helping us extend our capacities! As the disabled say (nothing for us without us) they are correct.
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