Study finds tracking tools too challenging for elderly, those with multiple conditions

If providers want the elderly and those with chronic conditions to adopt mobile health tools, developers will need to make the tools more convenient and easier to use, according to a study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College and Laval University in Quebec interviewed 22 patients with multiple chronic conditions and seven providers about health data tracking habits. The average age of the patients was 64, and they had an average of 3.5 conditions, including chronic pain, depression, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

The study found that multiple chronic conditions disproportionately affect low-income and elderly patients and predicted that such populations would have a more difficult time using health IT tools, such as diet and exercise applications or blood glucose monitoring tools.

Four themes came to light from the interviews:

• Patients' health data are not merely perceived as facts, but prompt positive and negative emotions;
• Patients say physicians often trust their own data, including lab reports, more than patients' self-reported data;
• Patients track data for many reasons; and
• Tracking health data is perceived as work for many patients.

To make a "public health impact," the authors wrote, new technology must "clearly reduce patient inconvenience and burden." They also noted that consumer health IT developers should take steps to "reach an audience that is broader than technologically sophisticated early adopters."