Digital Health Not Reaching Most Seniors Despite Their "Tech-Savviness"
Seniors used digital health at low rates with only modest increases from 2011 through 2014. To our knowledge, this is the first nationally representative study to examine trends in seniors’ digital health use, although a study in Northern California found higher patient portal use than the clinician contact rate in this study.3
Seniors’ use of everyday technology was below that of the general population (approximately 90% use the internet and own cell phones; 60% search for health information),4 but similar to other studies of older adults, except for the finding of racial and socioeconomic differences.4,5 Relying on everyday technology or generic internet use rates to estimate digital health use may be misleading. For example, although 63% used a computer and 43% used the internet, only 10% filled prescriptions online.
Limitations include that NHATS is a closed cohort with inception in 2011; more recent cohorts may be different. Many survey participants were lost to follow-up or died, although there were not large changes in sample characteristics. Data were only available over 4 years.
Digital health is not reaching most seniors and is associated with socioeconomic disparities, raising concern about its ability to improve quality, cost, and safety of their health care. Future innovations should focus on usability, adherence, and scalability to improve the reach and effectiveness of digital health for seniors.
This, despite the fact that 76% of seniors used cell phones.
Read: "Grandparents Are More Tech-Savvy Than Their Whipper Snapper Grandkids Think! But...."; http://sco.lt/95HxgX