Holtz B, Vasold K, Cotton S, Mackert M, Zhang M. (2019). Health care provider perceptions of consumer-grade devices and apps for tracking health: A pilot study. JMIR mHealth and uHealth. 7(1): e9929. doi: 10.2196/mhealth.9929
Researchers sent surveys to a randomly selected sample of 300 primary care physicians and 300 advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) in Michigan evaluating their use and perceptions of consumer health tracking technologies. The survey included questions about respondents’ use of these technologies, perceptions of patients’ use of these technologies, and perceived usefulness of the technologies. Researchers received 189 responses, including 82 primary care physicians and 107 APRNs. Nearly half of respondents (49.2%) reported personal use of consumer health tracking technologies. Most respondents had recommended consumer health tracking technology to their patients for physical activity (65.6%) and diet (62.4%). Respondents who used consumer health tracking technology were more likely to recommend tracking technologies to their patients for physical activity (6.4x), diet (6.5x), and sleep (3x) than respondents who had not used these technologies. Respondents who had used these technologies also agreed that they felt tracking technology would be useful for reviewing data with their patients, trusted in the data from tracking technology, and thought patients were interested in tracking technology significantly more than their counterparts who did not use personal tracking technologies. Respondents felt that consumer health tracking technology would be useful or very useful for tracking physical activity (55.6%), diet (49.2%), vital signs (43.7%), and goal setting (43.2%), but that it would be less useful for alcohol or drug use (62.5%), mental health (59.3%), smoking (52.8%), and tracking sleep (50.8%). APRNs were significantly more interested in linking data from consumer health technologies to patient portals than were primary care physicians.