JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

There is an increasingly diverse range of mobile applications (apps) and digital health devices available to help patients manage their health. Despite evidence for the effectiveness of such technologies in specific care contexts, their potential has not been fully realized as adoption remains low. Such limited uptake can have direct implications for the intended benefits of these technologies.

Objective:

To understand what matters most to US military Veterans when deciding whether to use mobile health apps or devices (i.e., digital health technologies (DHTs)) to manage health.

Methods:

Longitudinal survey data collected from a national sample of Veterans who receive care from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA).

Results:

Among the Veterans included in our analytic cohort (n=857), most (87.0%) reported currently using or having used ≥1 devices in the past to manage their health and most also reported using either VHA or non-VHA health apps (78.3%). Considerations most frequently endorsed as “Very Important” by Veterans when deciding whether to use DHTs included receiving secure messages from their healthcare team (73.2%), knowing their data would inform their care (56.5%), and recommendations from providers (52.6%). Conversely, considerations most frequently endorsed as “Not at All Important” included information on social media (70.5%), community organization support (66.4%), and encouragement from peers (56.7%).

Conclusions:

Understanding what matters most to patients when they are deciding to adopt a technology for their health can, and should, inform the development of implementation strategies and other approaches to enhance health-related technology use. Our results suggest that, for Veterans, recommendations from healthcare team members and knowing data will be used in clinical care are more important than information from social media, community sources, or peers when deciding to use DHTs. Based on our findings, direct communication from healthcare team members to patients, either in-person or electronically, should be encouraged to promote DHT adoption and use. Clinical Trial: N/A.