Technology and Healthcare Choices

Summary
The article titled: “Can Technology Improve Healthcare Decisions?” details the importance of making decisions and how technology impacts decision-making. Specifically, the article discusses making personal health decisions and uses the example of wearing a seatbelt to provide a picture of the significance of the process. To make wise personal health decisions, the article uses a basic formula: medical information + your information = wise health decisions (Dugas, 2017). The ‘your information’ aspect involves a person’s beliefs, past experiences, and perspective. People tend to remain in their current path by either choosing the default option given or not choosing an alternative path. Technology can be used to understand the nature of risk, gain information (i.e. physical activity monitor) to make the kinds of informed personal health decisions needed to live a healthy life.
Strength and Validity
Dugas (2017) offers various examples to support his claims that technology can aid in decision-making regarding personal health. While Dugas does not use quantitative information to express his point, he does an abstract explanation of why technology can be helpful. For example, technology can help in the three areas involved in decision-making. “our own individual responsibilities, our health risks, and technology” (Dugas, 2017, p. 53). Although most of the article talks about the importance of decision-making and what aspects of decision-making are involved (individual responsibility and nature of risk), the section titled: ‘Decision Aids’ provides real-world examples of how technology helps people make wise decisions for their personal health.
Some decision aids involve non-technology like pamphlets. However, there are technology-based decision aids that truly help inform patients of their choices in a convenient and easy manner. According to Dugas (2017), these decision aids can improve the knowledge of a person in order to make better decisions. “A recent study showed decision aids do in fact make it more likely that individuals feel more knowledgeable and better informed. When using a decision aid, individuals ‘probably have a more active role in decision-making and more accurate risk perceptions” (Dugas, 2017, p. 53-54). The simple example of blood glucose monitors wirelessly connected to a server transmits blood glucose levels allowing for a steady and easy flow of data between health care practitioner and patient (Dugas, 2017). Patients can also monitor themselves through such devices and decide whether to adopt a change in diet and lifestyle or not.
These devices are just one means of technology allowing people to make wiser personal health decisions. Another example used was physical health monitors. When people can see the number of steps they take, they can decide whether they need to be more active or not. Without such devices, decisions involve more guesswork. By using these various examples and explaining the decision-making process, Dugas shows how people can utilize technology to make better personal health decisions.
Recommendation
If a student seeks a data-driven article concerned with providing statistics about a specific topic, this article is not for that kind of person. It is an informative article that has a somewhat informal tone. The article is meant to reach a broad array of people and allow them to understand in a clear and concise manner, the importance of personal health decisions and how technology aids people in making better choices. Additionally, what technology can bring (decision aids) to the table regarding choicesis of key importance to those wishing to be updated on recent healthcare trends. I would recommend this article because it has the kind of appeal and information that is easy to understand.
References
Dugas, J. (2017). Can Technology Improve Healthcare Decisions. Benefits Magazine, 54(10), 50-54.