TY  - JOUR
AU  - Boeldt, Debra L
AU  - Wineinger, Nathan E
AU  - Waalen, Jill
AU  - Gollamudi, Shreya
AU  - Grossberg, Adam
AU  - Steinhubl, Steven R
AU  - McCollister-Slipp, Anna
AU  - Rogers, Marc A
AU  - Silvers, Carey
AU  - Topol, Eric J
PY  - 2015
DA  - 2015/09/14
TI  - How Consumers and Physicians View New Medical Technology: Comparative Survey
JO  - J Med Internet Res
SP  - e215
VL  - 17
IS  - 9
KW  - digital revolution
KW  - healthcare
KW  - medical technology
KW  - physician and consumer attitudes
KW  - electronic health record
KW  - mobile health
AB  - Background: As a result of the digital revolution coming to medicine, a number of new tools are becoming available and are starting to be introduced in clinical practice. Objective: We aim to assess health care professional and consumer attitudes toward new medical technology including smartphones, genetic testing, privacy, and patient-accessible electronic health records. Methods: We performed a survey with 1406 health care providers and 1102 consumer responders. Results: Consumers who completed the survey were more likely to prefer new technologies for a medical diagnosis (437/1102, 39.66%) compared with providers (194/1406, 13.80%; P<.001), with more providers (393/1406, 27.95%) than consumers (175/1102, 15.88%) reporting feeling uneasy about using technology for a diagnosis. Both providers and consumers supported genetic testing for various purposes, with providers (1234/1406, 87.77%) being significantly more likely than consumers (806/1102, 73.14%) to support genetic testing when planning to have a baby (P<.001). Similarly, 91.68% (1289/1406) of providers and 81.22% (895/1102) of consumers supported diagnosing problems in a fetus (P<.001). Among providers, 90.33% (1270/1406) were concerned that patients would experience anxiety after accessing health records, and 81.95% (1149/1406) felt it would lead to requests for unnecessary medical evaluations, but only 34.30% (378/1102; P<.001) and 24.59% (271/1102; P<.001) of consumers expressed the same concerns, respectively. Physicians (137/827, 16.6%) reported less concern about the use of technology for diagnosis compared to medical students (21/235, 8.9%; P=.03) and also more frequently felt that patients owned their medical record (323/827, 39.1%; and 30/235, 12.8%, respectively; P<.001). Conclusions: Consumers and health professionals differ significantly and broadly in their views of emerging medical technology, with more enthusiasm and support expressed by consumers. 
SN  - 1438-8871
UR  - http://www.jmir.org/2015/9/e215/
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.4456
UR  - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26369254
DO  - 10.2196/jmir.4456
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/jmir.4456
ER  -