These days, it's fairly easy to access information on the internet. Whether it's through your smartphone or laptop, anything can be within reach, even this article you're reading.
Because digital technology has become ubiquitous, hopes have been high that the health care of seniors would improve. It's expected, especially since Dr. Google is just one click away.
However, a new study suggests that only a few elder Americans are on board with technology. In fact, senior citizens rarely go online or use their gadgets for health care needs, researchers said.
Use Of Digital Health Technology
The most expensive, fastest and sickest growing segment of the American population are those who are 65 years old and older, experts said.
The advent of digital health technology has been pegged as a solution to improve health care cost, quality and safety. Prior to the new study, little was known about digital health use among seniors.
Now, a team of experts led by Dr. David Levine examined trends in senior citizens' use of digital health technology.
The research team analyzed results from the NHATS or the National Health and Aging Trends Study, which is a survey of thousands of Medicare patients aged 65 and above.
Every year since 2011 until 2014, the NHATS asks the same participants about daily non-health technology use.
The survey also asks four digital health aspects: the use of technology to contact a physician, the use of technology to fill prescriptions, digital use to address insurance matters, and the use for researching health conditions.
In 2011, the average age of the participants was 75 years old and 57 percent were women.
Low Rate Of Internet Use Among Seniors
Although 76 percent of the senior citizens in the study used their cellphones and 64 percent used computers, only 43 percent used internet and 40 percent used texting and email.
About 20 percent of the participants used online shopping, online banking and social network sites.
Meanwhile, few seniors used the internet for digital health.
Researchers found that only 5 percent to 8 percent of the study respondents go online to fill prescriptions, communicate with doctors or deal with health insurance.
Authors of the study acknowledged that some seniors may be wary of technology or unable to afford computers or internet service. However, they admitted that they were shocked by the findings.
Levine, who is also an internist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, says there is a general notion that digital health will "rescue" seniors and increase the quality of health care.
And although most seniors use cellphones and go online, they apparently don't use it for health care.
"When it comes to more-advanced technology, they're just not using it," says Levine.
Details of the new report are published in the journal JAMA.
Photo: Michael Coghlan | Flickr
