They may do most of their communicating with doctors and other health care professionals by phone, but a study shows nearly three-quarters of patients want their health care provider to use tools such as web portals, live chat/instant message or two-way video.

But that doesn’t mean they’re universally accepting of such tools as artificial intelligence.

The Salesforce 2017 Connected Patient Report finds 80 percent of patients overall communicate with their doctors by phone to make appointments, with a negligible difference among generations — boomers come in at 80 percent, while Gen Xers come in at 82 percent and 79 percent of millennials use the phone.

For other purposes, however, there’s a heavier reliance on other technologies and even an in-person visit; to look at current health data, 41 percent overall want the face time, with 44 percent each of millennials and boomers actually going in to see the doctor and, surprisingly, just 36 percent of Gen Xers doing so.

Close to the same number use a portal to check records — 32 percent of millennials, 35 percent of Gen Xers and 36 percent of boomers — and less than half that number rely on e-mail to do so.

When it comes to connecting with pharmaceutical companies, 83 percent overall say they’d share direct feedback about a medication with a drug company to help improve their ability to develop and support new medications.

But not everybody has joined the 21st century. While about the same percentage of patients (28 percent) keep their health records in a folder, shoebox, lockbox, drawer or other home-based physical storage method, only a hair more (29 percent) use a single self-service portal provided by their health care and/or insurance provider. And 60 percent rely on the doctor to keep track of their health records.

And when it comes to AI in health care, there’s a significant generation gap among respondents. Not only do a majority of millennials (59 percent) say they’re excited about the potential of AI to positively affect health care, compared to 33 percent of boomers, millennials are also far more likely than boomers (at 63 percent compared with 28 percent) to say they’d be interested in a digital assistant to recommend personalized healthy habits.

And among boomers who are at all interested in AI in medicine, 70 percent say it’s because it can give doctors more time to focus on patient health by taking care of more administrative tasks, so they free up more of doctors’ time to be with patients.

AI in diagnostics isn’t exactly a favorite idea of boomers; 74 percent are worried it might provide an incorrect diagnosis that could be used over a doctor’s recommendation. Just 60 percent of millennials are concerned that such a thing could happen.

Instant Insights /

Patients want doctors to be up on health care technology, but not too much

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