Health Tracking and Information Sharing in the Patient-Centered Era: A Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) Study

AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2020 Mar 4:2019:1041-1050. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

We examined the current state of digital health tracking and information sharing with health professionals among patients with chronic conditions using data from the National Cancer Institute's 2018 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS). Descriptive statistics were used to examine the characteristics of health tracking and information sharing, Chi-squared tests were used to compare across groups, and multivariate logistic regression models were used to control for covariates. Between 17.4-37.6% of respondents reported sharing information with a health professional through either e-mail, monitoring device, text message, or online medical record message. There were sociodemographic differences across health tracking and information sharing modalities, and patients with chronic conditions disproportionately lacked Internet access, a basic cell phone, smartphone, or tablet compared to those without chronic conditions (p<0.05). This suggests there are sociodemographic and technology-based disparities for health tracking and information sharing for patients with chronic conditions.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Cell Phone
  • Chi-Square Distribution
  • Chronic Disease
  • Computers, Handheld
  • Electronic Health Records
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Information Dissemination*
  • Internet
  • Logistic Models
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • National Cancer Institute (U.S.)
  • Patient-Centered Care*
  • Physician-Patient Relations*
  • Socioeconomic Factors
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Text Messaging
  • United States
  • Young Adult