How Doctors think about new technologies (The Health Care Blog by Leslie Kernisan, MD)
“Hey doctor, what do you think about this product/solution/service?”
These days, I look at a lot of websites describing some kind of product or solution related to the healthcare of older adults. Sometimes it’s because I have a clinical problem I’m trying to solve. (Can any of these sleep gadgets provide data — sleep latency, nighttime awakenings, total sleep time — on my elderly patient’s sleep complaints?)
In other cases, it’s because a family caregiver asks me if they should purchase some gizmo or sensor system they heard about. (“Do you think this will help keep my mom safe at home?”)
And increasingly, it’s because an entrepreneur asks me to check out his or her product.
So far, it’s been a bit of a bear to try to check out products. Part of it is that there are often too many choices, and there’s not yet a lot of help sifting through them. (And research has shown that choices create anxiety, decision-fatigue, and dissatisfaction with one’s ultimate pick.)
But even when I’m just considering a single product and trying to decide what to think of it, I find myself a bit stumped by...
