Consumer Directed Healthcare

Do Americans really want to move away from the face to face visit that is critical to developing a relationship with your doctor? 

A 2006 Wall Street Journal Online/Harris Interactive Health-Care Poll showed that most people would like to use technology to communicate with physicians.  Of the 2,624 U.S. adults surveyed online:

• 74 percent would like to use e-mail to communicate directly with their doctor.
• 62 percent said physicians’ use of e-mail to communicate directly with them or a family member would influence their choice of doctors a great deal or to some extent.
• 77 percent would like reminders via e-mail from their doctors when they are due for a visit or some type of medical care.
• 75 percent would like to have the ability to schedule a doctor’s visit via the Internet.
• 4 percent said they use e-mail to communicate with their doctors and 4 percent said they have it available but do not use it.
• 67 percent would like to receive the results of diagnostic tests via e-mail.

How many times have you misunderstood the tone of an email?  Are you willing to take that chance on your health? 

http://redeye.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/coverstory/red-101507-webdocs-survey,0,5596232.story

The Democratic Presidential Candidates participated in the first online only debate.  They weighed in on such issues as Iraq, education and healthcare. 

Yahoo! News asked users who they would vote for after seeing the online debate. Only a fraction of those who watched debate footage voted — more than a million people watched debate clips, but only 15%, or about 160,000 people, voted. That’s not so different from the low-turnout rates we usually see in actual elections.

 How do you feel about the candidates view on the state of healthcare and their plan to resolve the issue of the uninsured?

http://debates.news.yahoo.com/

Hopefully, we’ll have the opportunity to see the Republican mashup debate soon.