Screening by Health Care Systems for Barriers to Patient Engagement With Digital Health Care: Cross-Sectional Survey Study
Digital readiness screening has had limited adoption in US health care systems, particularly in settings serving the populations most likely to experience challenges with digital access or literacy. The limited adoption of digital readiness screening likely reflects lower awareness of digital readiness as a social need and a lack of infrastructure to support its uptake, such as standardized screening questions or a workforce trained on how to screen for and intervene on barriers to digital readiness. Low awareness of digital equity policies that might incentivize digital readiness screening further hinders adoption. Without increased adoption of digital readiness screening and/or interventions to mitigate barriers to digital readiness, digital health tools are unlikely to be accessible to or benefit all populations. Multilevel interventions, including policy changes and workforce training, are likely necessary to increase the adoption of digital readiness screening and mitigation efforts that address barriers to digital exclusion.
Authors
- Anjana E. Sharma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5541-2414)
- Ricky Ellis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7310-6904)
- Elaine C. Khoong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2514-3572)
- Jorge A. Rodriguez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1833-6819)
- Kelsey Natsuhara (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7352-7028)
- Jonathan Shih (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8651-7806)
- Urmimala Sarkar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4213-4405)
- Emilia H. De Marchis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1782-1609)
- Marika Dy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7592-9998)
- Sarah Rahman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6563-1589)
- Courtney Rees Lyles (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1111-8595)
- Nilpa D. Shah (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8199-7145)
- Amy R. Sheon (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4752-7523)
- Lisa C. Diamond (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2175-6224)
- Vivian E Kwok (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-1760-710X)
- Carmen Ma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4886-8197)
- Andersen Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-4446-0849)
Institutions
- Brigham and Women's Hospital (US)
- San Francisco General Hospital (US)
- Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (US)
- University of California, San Francisco (US)
- Alameda Health System (US)
- Research for Action (US)
- Center For Policy Research (US)
- Light Prescriptions Innovators (United States) (US)
- University of California, Davis (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- JMIR Formative Research
- Published
- 2025-11-27
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.2196/85205
- Primary Topic
- Electronic Health Records Systems
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- University of California, San Francisco
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
- National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities