March 5, 2019

Singh Examines Health Self-Management in the Digital Age

New Health Affairs article explores how greater access to health care apps and tools requires new kinds of communication between patient and doctor.

Karandeep Singh, along with his co-authors Sean R. Meyer and John M. Westfall, have a new article in the March issue of Health Affairs on managing your data and health in the increasingly digital world.

The piece entitled Consumer-Facing Data, Information, And Tools: Self- Management of Health in The Digital Age explores how the rapid growth in the past five years of consumer focused health care apps and websites, which have varying degrees of quality and accuracy, impact health care and the doctor-patient relationship. “Patients have easier access to their own health data than ever before, and this reflects real progress that has been made through the adoption of electronic health records systems and patient portals in the U.S. At the same time, patients are also generating health data by tracking aspects of their own health using smartphone apps and wearables, some of which is clinical actionable.” Says Singh as he sums up the problem that arises when doctors aren’t familiar with these new self-management tools. 

He continues, “These patient-facing apps are largely ignored by the medical community because they are treated as a consumer good rather than a medical good. Clinicians don’t know enough about the apps in their area to recommend them to patients, and patient-generated data is rarely incorporated into the medical record or directly acted upon. If we are to treat patients as consumers, then we as medical professionals also have an obligation to support patients in engaging in their own care.”

The article is available now online and in the current issue of Health Affairs.