Ease of Use in Health Information Technology Trumps Everything Else

QUOTE: “Consumers care more about ease of use than trustworthiness when it comes to looking up health information online, according to a Makovsky survey of 1,035 US adults….”

This is why we invented Treatment Scores. You look up a diagnosis. You get a list of treatments. You get a Treatment Score for each treatment. What could be simpler? Ease of use with Treatment Scores is as good as it gets.

What is the Treatment Score? The Treatment Score represents the net benefit to the patient. We always use a 100-point scale and the time period and main outcome measure are defined by the patient. In other words, Treatment Scores define treatments according to what is important to patient. It almost makes too much sense to be true.

I previously reviewed the medical literature for taking metformin to prevent death. You can see that essay here: http://www.treatmentscoresblog.com/2016/02/treatments-to-prevent-death-do-you-want.html

I could not give metformin a high Treatment Score because the studies were not good enough. The data simply did not exist. In the future you’re going to see the data presented in list of treatments like this:

Please, for your own sake, consider stopping smoking if you’re a smoker. It may be the single biggest lifestyle change you can make to improve your health.

Examine the treatment list above carefully. Imagine a list of 130 treatments for something like a migraine headache where every Treatment Score was filled in. That’s the future of medicine.

In the future you’re going to get EASE-OF-USE when looking up health information. You are no longer going to have to go from review article to review article. You are no longer going to have to spend hours and hours looking up information about a treatment, read medical studies for hours and hours, and then try to digest all that technical information. It will be done for you using health information technology. We will have Treatment Scores.

The problem is that websites are hard to use. In the article I quoted at the beginning, a lot of people trusted the CDC, but found their website difficult to use. A lot of people trusted non-profit organizations for healthcare information, but only 16% of the respondents in the survey used those sources, because they were difficult. This is why we need Treatment Scores. We need to combine trustworthiness with ease-of-use. Since Treatment Scores are a transparent system they will eventually become the most trustworthy system. Since Treatment Scores digest the information down to one number, they will destroy every other website when it comes to ease-of-use.

Treatment Scores will be perfect for mobile health and smart phones. Treatment Scores are the future.

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You must consult your own licensed physician, or other licensed medical professional, for diagnosis, treatment, and for the interpretation of all medical statistics including Treatment Scores. Treatment Scores are for educational purposes only. Treatment Scores may be incomplete, inaccurate, harmful, or even cause death if used for treatment instead of consulting a licensed medical professional. No medical advice is being given. We DO NOT CLAIM to cure, treat, or prevent any illness or condition. Nor do our services provide medical advice or constitute a physician patient relationship. Contact a physician or other medical professional if you suspect that you are ill. Call emergency services (call 911 if available) or go to the nearest emergency room if an emergency is suspected. We are not responsible for any delays in care from using our website, our services, or for any other reason. We are not responsible for any consequential damages of any nature whatsoever. We make no warranties of any kind in connection with our writings or the use of TreatmentScoresBlog.com or TreatmentScores.com. Treatment Scores are about what happened to patients studied in the past; they do not predict the future.

SOURCES:
Survey: Usability trumps trustworthiness for consumers' health website preferences, by Aditi Paik, March 10, 2016. Accessed 2016/03/24.
http://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/survey-usability-trumps-trustworthiness-consumers-health-website-preferences

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