engleski

Digital Divide in HealthCare: Big Industry’s Hype or NonFictional HealthCare Calamity?

The newest and greatest technology available to patients and doctors practicing a “precision medicine” is facing an unexpected barrier, a digital divide between nurses, doctors, hospital systems, and consumers, that is growing wider. New technology, in most cases we are discussing a big 5 digital companies, are offering consumers a growing array of health-related applications, programs, monitors, and devices. The big consulting and IT technology industry side story sound clear and simple. By enabling people to own, and control access to, their health data, “digital/mobile health technologies eliminate the information asymmetry that has long benefited healthcare system incumbents and inhibited the creation of an informed healthcare consumer”. The position of the healthcare digital industry giants and the accompanying big 5 consulting firms is that the consumers can create their own personal health management “ecosystems, quite literally in the palms of their hands, based on individual preferences for how they wish to monitor and manage their health and healthcare, as well as how they choose to manage their health benefits and payments”. The industry’s position is clear and simple: although these technologies currently pose little risk to incumbents, they could create considerable positive disruption in the not- distant future1 However, reality tends to take a different direction. The unusual suspect, an uneducated patient or doctor, is becoming hesitant, reluctant and even grudging while traveling through the the new landscape of digital technologies in healthcare. Patients who have higher health literacy rates are the most skeptical about sharing data because of the lack of cybersecurity measures, particularly among medical groups, clinics, and ancillary facilities according to recent survey results2 While trying to explain a relationship between the great developments in digital healthcare industries and patients trust and behavioral attitudes a recent survey “Healthcare’s Digital Divide Widens” asked 12, 090 consumers to evaluate the technology they were exposed to, know of or interacted. Respondents were especially alarmed that their prescriptions, mental health notes, and chronic conditions were being shared not only with their healthcare provider but also with retailers, employers, and the government without their knowledge. The research found that 70 percent of patients distrust health technology, indicating a steep climb from 10 percent in 2014. The consequence is that a wide margin of the total population, 89 percent of patients, and the highest rates are among the most educated ones, are withholding health information during visits. The problem is not only on the patient's side, a large number of physicians (94 percent) responding to the survey found the amount of data overwhelming, redundant and unlikely to 1 McKinsey&Co. How tech-enabled consumers are reordering the healthcare landscape. https://healthcare.mckinsey.com/howtech-enabled- consumers-are-reordering-healthcare-landscape 2 Medical ID theft fears make consumers skeptical of health info tech. http://www.insurancefraud.org/IFNSdetail.htm? key=24542 3 Black Book Market Research 2017 https://blackbookmarketresearch.newswire.com/news/ he althcares-digital-divide-widensblack-book- consumer- survey-18432252 13 make a clinical difference. Again, among the patients, 93 percent responding expressed concerns over the security of their personal financial information. 69 percent of patients confirm their belief that their current primary care physician does not demonstrate enough technology prowess for them to trust divulging all their personal information. The unwillingness of patients to comprehensively divulge all their medical information rose to 87 percent. Recent data hacking and a perceived lack of privacy protection by healthcare providers played a role in consumer attitude concerning healthcare technology. The consequence is that both physicians and patient adoption of healthcare technology do not represent a certain and simple future, something that should be taken for granted. Our research on the use of data sources to develop predictive models for measles vaccination in Croatia was facing the same patterns towards the use of big data/data science in patients, physicians, and institutional behavior.

Health ; Digital Society ; Bioethics

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