The Connected Age: Mobile Apps and Consumer Engagement

Abstract

According to the Pew Research Internet Project, three driving forces have brought us into the Connected Age: 1) greater access to broadband, 2) mobile connectivity and the concept of anytime/anyplace, and 3) the presence of social media and social networks in all our lives (Pew Research, 2014). Consider some recent statistics about American adults, young adults, and teenagers:* 87 percent of adults use the Internet (Fox & Rainie, 2014).* 90 percent of adults have cell phones, with 78 percent having smartphones (Pew Research, 2014).* 52 percent of adults have tablet computer devices and 32 percent e-reader devices (Pew Research, 2014).* 70 percent of teens (ages 13 to 17) and 79 percent of young adults (ages 18 to 24) own smartphones (Nielsen, 2013).* 73 percent of adults use social networking sites, Facebook being the most prevalent (Duggan & Smith, 2013).* 42 percent of adults also explore other social networking platforms such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Twitter (Duggan & Smith, 2013).* 64 percent of social media users log in at least once day (Smith, 2014), with almost 50 percent using smartphones to log into their social networks (Nielsen, 2014).Just imagine what this means in terms of our students!McCoy (2013) found the following when he interviewed 777 students at five different universities:* Students use their devices in class an average of 11 times per day.* During class, 96 percent of students text, 79 percent check the time, 68 percent check email, 66 percent connect to social networks, 38 percent surf the Internet, and 8 percent play games.* 70 percent use their devices in class to stay connected; 55 percent use them to fight boredom; only 49 percent use them for class-related work.So, how can we as faculty (who, of course, would not dream of using smartphone or tablet in faculty meetings) capture the attention of our students? How can we get our students to use their devices for some meaningful purpose?This article offers simple lesson plan that you can use to engage your students as active participants, in particular course over several sessions or even across the curriculum. By sharing the plan with colleagues, you can use it to thread patient-centered care and informatics across number of courses such as public/community health, fundamentals, professional issues and research, or courses with clinical content.BEFOR E GETTING STARTEDThis plan, which focuses on consumer engagement, will allow students to put their mobile devices to good use in class while preparing them for the patients and families they will encounter as part of the e-patient revolution. It will help students understand how the patient and family need to be collaborative partners in their health care. I have previously written about the need for consumers, patients, and their families to become more engaged in their health care decisions (Skiba, 2013). Both the Health IT Pledge (Skiba, 2012) and the Blue Button Campaign (www.healthit.gov/patients-families/pledge-info) can be used to encourage providers and patients to access their health data to make better decisions.I highly recommend having your students read A National Action Plan to Support Consumer Engagement via E-Health (Ricciardi, Mostashari, Murphy, Daniel, & Siminerio, 2013). article points out that while patient-centered care is an integral feature of a high performing, high quality health care system (p. 376), patients and families have limited access to their health information. They need tools to enable them to access information, including patient portals to electronic health records (EHRs), personal health records, mobile apps and Internet access for health education information, and peer support and advice.The Ricciardi et al. plan focuses on Access, Action, and Attitudes. The three prongs of the strategy are to increase patients' Access to their health information; to enable consumers to take Action with that information; and to shiftAttitudes so that patients and providers think and act as partners in managing health and health care using health information technology (p. …