Here Is Some Very Interesting Research On Attitudes To The My Health Record And The Level Of Trust People Have in It.

This appeared last week.

 ‘I’d like to think you could trust the government, but I don’t really think we can’: Australian women’s attitudes to and experiences of My Health Record

Deborah Lupton

First Published April 29, 2019 Research Article

https://doi.org/10.1177/2055207619847017

Article information 

Abstract

The Australian government’s Australian Digital Health Agency is working towards its goal of enrolling every Australian in My Health Record, its national electronic health record system. This article reports findings from a qualitative project involving interviews and focus groups with Australian women about their use of digital health across the range of technologies available to them, including their attitudes to and experiences of My Health Record. A feminist new materialism perspective informed the project, working to surface the affordances, affective forces and relational connections that contributed to the opening up or closing off potential agential capacities when people come together with digitised systems such as My Health Record. These findings demonstrate that people’s personal experiences and feelings, the actions of others such as the agencies responsible for system implementation and function, their healthcare providers and broader social, cultural, technological and political factors are important in shaping their knowledge, interest in and acceptance of an electronic health record system. Even among this group of participants, who were experienced and active in finding and engaging with health information online, uncertainty and a lack of awareness of and interest in My Health Record were evident among many. Affordances such as technical difficulties were major barriers to enrolling and using the system successfully. No participants had yet found any benefit or use for it. Affective forces such as lack of trust and faith in the Australian government’s general technological expertise and concerns about data privacy and security were also key in many participants’ accounts.

Keywords Australia, digital health, digital sociology, electronic patient records, feminist new materialism, My Health Record, women

Here is the link to the Abstract and the full – freely available – article. The article also has a pretty useful list of references and a discussion of the history of the My Health Record Program.

The article is a great read to hear the voices of 40-50 who have spoken regarding their experiences with it. Well worth a download and read I believe.

The last two paragraphs of the Abstract really say a great deal!

I think it is fair to say the ADHA has not even begun to justify what it is doing at this point,

David.

Share on Google Plus

About ana05

This is a short description in the author block about the author. You edit it by entering text in the "Biographical Info" field in the user admin panel.