Category Archives: Health analytics

Mobile Health (mHealth) Research Platform to Launch

Health analytics, Mobile Health (mHealth), Patient engagement, Patient-Reported Outcomes, Research tools, , , ,

In recent health information technology news, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), has received a 5-year National Institutes of Health award to support its launch of a cardiovascular mHealth platform. The research platform, to be named Health ePeople, will build on the successes of UCSF’s Health eHeart Study, which began in 2013. That study, with more than 30,000 participants worldwide, uses the power of mobile technologies to collect cardiovascular data and patient-reported outcomes (PROs) from study participants.

The Health ePeople platform will advance mHealth by providing researchers with easy access to a large cohort of volunteers, along with a quick, affordable means for collecting their health data through mobile and wireless technologies. Though the platform will not be ready to enroll new participants for several months, people who want to participate in the cohort can sign up through the Health eHeart Study website.

For information and short videos on mHealth technologies, visit the Living Textbook’s chapter on mHealth and PROs.

Latest Truven Health Analytics–NPR Health Poll on Medical Data Privacy

Data privacy, Electronic health records, Health analytics, ,

How concerned are people about the privacy of their medical information? Not very—according to the November 2014 Truven Health Analytics–NPR Health Poll (opens as PDF). The poll asked how respondents feel about sharing their electronic health information and other data with researchers, employers, health plans, and their doctors. The majority expressed a willingness to share their anonymized health information with researchers; less than a quarter expressed willingness to share non-healthcare data with their healthcare providers.

Each month, the Truven Health Analytics–NPR Health Poll surveys approximately 3,000 Americans to gauge attitudes and opinions on a wide range of healthcare issues. Poll results are reported by NPR on the health blog Shots. Among the results of this survey:

  • 74% of respondents indicated that their physician uses an electronic medical record system.
  • 68% of respondents would share their health information anonymously with researchers.
  • 44% of respondents have looked through their health information kept by their physician.

The survey analyses were stratified by age, education, generation, and income. Poll questions were posed by cell phone, land line, and online during the first half of August 2014. The margin of error was plus or minus 1.8 percentage points. An executive summary of the survey, including questions and survey data, is here.