Harris Interactive and HealthDay announced the results of their latest consumer survey on consumer attitudes towards electronic medical records. This is but just one more survey that seems to state the same thing over and over again, that there is an ever so slight rise in consumer use of such technologies, but really nothing to write home about.
With this being just one of many such surveys out on the street, one has to wonder when we’ll stop surveying and when we, as a society, will actually move to start educating the consumers, in a broad and consistent fashion, that managing one’s personal health information may be as important as managing one’s financial information.
Maybe the only way we’ll ever get the consumer truly engaged is when we take employers out of the health insurance picture and have consumers directly purchase their own health insurance much like they purchase their auto insurance today. We can even institute programs similar to what car insurers do today; tack on premiums for those who willingly smoke, do not engage in weight programs and continue on a path of self-destruction that drives up the insurnace costs for everyone. Likely then and only then will we see true consumer engagement. Until that time, surveys such as this latest one will continue to show a relatively lackidasical attitude on the part of consumers as it pertains to their engagement and management of their PHI.
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