title: Patient attitudes toward using computers to improve health services delivery.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The aim of this study was to examine the acceptability of point of care computerized prompts to improve health services delivery among a sample of primary care patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  Primary data collection. Cross-sectional survey. Patients were surveyed after their visit with a primary care provider. Data were obtained from patients of ten community-based primary care practices in the spring of 2001.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Almost all patients reported that they would support using a computer before each visit to prompt their doctor to: "do health screening tests" (92%), "counsel about health behaviors (like diet and exercise)" (92%) and "change treatments for health conditions" (86%). In multivariate testing, the only variable that was associated with acceptability of the point of care computerized prompts was patient's confidence in their ability to answer questions about their health using a computer (beta = 0.39, p =.001). Concerns about data security were expressed by 36.3% of subjects, but were not related to acceptability of the prompts.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Support for using computers to generate point of care prompts to improve quality-oriented processes of care was high in our sample, but may be contingent on patients feeling familiar with their personal medical history.
authors.affiliation: Brown University School of Medicine Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine at The Miriam Hospital, USA. csciamanna@lifespan.org
authors.forename: Christopher N
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Sciamanna
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Diaz
authors.forename: Puja
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Myne
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001292:Attitude to Computers; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019095:Point-of-Care Systems / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011314:Preventive Health Services / Q000379:methods; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration; D017064:Process Assessment, Health Care; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000379:methods; D017010:Reminder Systems; D012237:Rhode Island