Survey Confirms E-Health Challenges

A survey run by Health Industry Insights confirmed what many of healthcare IT and policy professionals have known, and the Markle report provided initial insight into. 1) The public is relatively unaware of e-health initiaves, 2) the public is very concerned about the privacy of health information. Granted, it's a small study on a select population (1100 consumers), but it's a confirmation nonetheless.

Some of the specific numbers:

1) 86% of respondents are "somewhat or very concerned about the health industry’s ability to protect the privacy of personal health information in deploying EHRs."

2) "Consumers rank overcoming privacy/security (44%) as the top challenge in meeting the 2014 goal, followed by complexity and cooperation within the healthcare industry (24%)."

3) 33% of respondents believe it will materially reduce the cost of care.

Caveat - this last one is quite speculative (though this is about the perception, not the truth), and is a major current research issue. Conflicting findings suggest that cost reduction will be dependent on a number of factors that go much further than just digital records, including size of population, scope of care, expertise, policies, etc...

Download the press release here.