Proactive Patients Seeking Healthcare Information Prefer Surfing The Web Over Turning Pages In A Reference Book

A new study, from the University of California, Davis shows that patients prefer using the internet to obtain healthcare information over asking friends or using reference books. This study, based on a survey of over 500 people, magnified the desire of patients to be proactive in managing their health. “The Internet has become a mainstream source of information about health and other issues,” said Xinyi Hu, who co-authored the study as part of her master's thesis in communication. “Many people go online to get information when they anticipate a challenge in their life. It makes sense that they would do the same when dealing with a health issue.”

Furthermore, the study pointed out that proactive patients do not mistrust their doctors; they simply want to gain personal control over their health. "The study revealed that patients are not turning to the Internet out of any doubt; more likely, Internet users are curious information seekers who are just trying to learn as much as they can before their appointment”, said co-author Richard L. Kravitz, a UC Davis Health System professor of internal medicine and study co-author.

The basic value of PHR platform is to embrace the patient-specific clinical information quickly, accurately, reasonably, and safely. We anticipate that many other medical institutions will probably face challenges, but the proactive approach with open and constant communication between the patients and doctors provides safe information which overcomes many inevitable issues that arise timely. Proactive approach for an individual clinical data is a very new conduct. It will take time to become common with substantial progress.

Seeing as this, PHR is an easy gateway in providing personal online portal from which patients can record, track and even save their important health related information at one secure online place. They can easily manage their personal health records like demographic information, appointment history, lab-test results, payment reports, outstanding balances and claim history, available 24/7 from any Internet-ready computer. Level of trust between a doctor and a patient gets more compact since online information-seeking is higher among the patients who get all the information from internet, recent survey (2012).

Almost 70% of the study subjects reported they were planning to ask their doctor questions about the information they found on the internet, and about 40 percent said they had printed out information to take with them to discuss with their doctors. More than 50 percent of subjects said they intended to make at least one request of their doctor on the basis of Internet information, recent survey (2012).

In February 2011, there were more than 12,000 groups listed in the support category of Yahoo! Groups Health and Wellness directory. Only 9% of Americans and 37% of patients with continual disease have participated in online support groups, so the doctors need to be attentive and alert to provide the same degree of reassurance, their patients expects from them, (2012). Moreover, majority patients feel much comfortable to get any sort of online information from their doctors. This has also developed trust and confidence among the patients, who prefer online health solutions. 

Personal Health Records (PHR)