Health Literacy and Consumer-Facing Technology Workshop Summary (2015) / Chapter Skim
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2 Consumer-Facing Technology: What Is It and What Are the Issues?
2 Consumer-Facing Technology: What Is It and What Are the Issues?
Pages 5-14
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From page 5... ...
Turning to the subject at hand, Vickey asked the following question: "Can consumer-facing digital health technology really help people live healthier lives? " Before answering this question, he noted the number of workshop attendees whom, like him, were wearing activity-tracking devices and commented that certain people fear using this technology.
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From page 6... ...
This device, which is placed over the heart, transmits heart rate both to a mobile phone app and to exercise equipment so that the user can monitor his or her heart rate while exercising. Vickey also mentioned the recently released Apple Watch as being part fitness device, but pointed out that its $350 price point is one that many people will be unable to afford and that its complexity may be beyond the abilities of some potential users.
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From page 7... ...
Even more alarming to that industry is the fact that 73 percent of app users say they are healthier today because of those apps. Other statistics Vickey cited included • Sixty-nine percent of mobile health users think that tracking their health and fitness on their smartphone is more important than using it for social networking or online shopping; • Forty-six percent say that tracking has changed their overall approach to maintaining their own health or the health of another, suggesting that people are now using smartphone apps to manage the care of family members; • Forty percent of people who use tracking devices say that doing so has led them to ask a health professional new questions or to get a second opinion; and • Thirty-four percent say that it has affected a decision about how to treat an illness or a condition.
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From page 8... ...
The other aspect of this different story is that while users report loving apps, health care professionals are still hesitant about using the data those apps generate. A recent survey, for example, found that 16 percent of health care providers are using mobile health apps in their own practices with their patients, and half of the health care providers surveyed expect to use these types of devices in their practice within the next 5 years.
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From page 9... ...
The Pew Mobile Health Report (Fox and Duggan, 2012) suggests there are many different groups that use smartphones to gather health information, particularly Latinos and African Americans ages 18 to 49, and those with college degrees.
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From page 10... ...
For example, Vickey conducted a research project in which he collected more than 7 million Tweets in which people shared their running workout routines for more than 1 year. From some of these Tweets he could find out a person's routine, the distance run, time and heart rate, and any music listened to during exercise.
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From page 11... ...
There seems to be real potential here to make a difference in the lives of people, lots and lots of people, so that they can live healthier lives, but this technology still remains unproven and the lack of scientific proof puts sustained growth of this consumer-facing health technology at some sort of risk. People will ask if this is just another fad," Vickey said, adding that he hoped this workshop would start a discussion about how health literacy can help create sustained behavior change in people's lives through these technologies.
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From page 12... ...
Vickey agreed that apps could help with that aspect of managing chronic disease, but his main concern is that there are tens of thousands of apps and no good way for the average person to pick those that provide good information. "People can create apps and then can claim to be health experts or health literacy experts, but they may not be," said Vickey.
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From page 13... ...
"I was reading an article a couple of months ago that said these technologies won't work until they tell us what to do, and I don't think I want a technology to tell me what to do," he said. Winston Wong, medical director for community benefit disparities improvement and quality initiatives at Kaiser Permanente, asked if consumer-facing health technology can facilitate public health, citing the recent outbreak of measles as a public health failure and wondering if an app or other health technology could facilitate the advancement of public health in a health literate manner.
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From page 14... ...
So I have my step information here, I have my blood pressure information here, I have my food journaling here. But what I'm seeing now in the industry is finally some interoperability of people coming together and being able to see that information as one." Vickey commented that consumer-facing technologies may eventually serve as a diagnostic tool for physicians in much the same way that a modern car's onboard computer provides diagnostic information for an auto mechanic.
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