Physicians are still skeptical about digital health, according to a 2016 American Medical Association survey.
To gain insights into how physicians feel about digital health, the research team asked 1,300 physicians why they did or did not adopt digital health solutions. Building upon that survey in not-yet-published research, the team at AMA worked with Partners HealthCare Center to review nearly 3,000 papers on provider adoption of digital health.
The researchers found that more than half (56 percent) of digital health solutions had been implemented in primary care settings, while 19 percent were in specialty settings and 25 percent were implemented in both.
However, the team also learned physicians have four common concerns with digital health. They want to know: whether digital health works; if they will get paid for adopting it; whether it could result in a lawsuit; and if it will be successful in their practices.
"Digital health is the sort of wild west of medicine and health care right now," Kate Kirley, MD, a family physician and director of chronic disease prevention at the AMA, said during a presentation at the Connected Health Conference in Boston. "It's one of the new frontiers that we are all attempting to tame."
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