Improving patient engagement by fostering the sharing of activity tracker data with providers: a qualitative study

Abstract

Background Activity trackers are becoming increasingly popular, but patients often hesitate to share the data from such devices with their health care providers. Researchers have shown that sharing everyday health data with physicians can foster greater patient engagement. Objectives This research is intended to investigate activity tracker users' decisions regarding the sharing of their activity tracker data with physicians, as well as to build a stage based framework for improving patient engagement by fostering such data sharing. Methods Qualitative analysis of interview records of 12 adults, who had used Fitbit activity tracking devices for up to two years, identifying emotions and experiences surrounding their tendencies to share physical exercise data with a physician. Results This research used the subjects' emotions and considerations regarding the decision over whether to share exercise data with physicians to create a stage based framework with three stages: cognisance, tangible evidence and supportive feedback. Conclusion The tendency to progress towards three stages with greater patient-physician engagement appears to increase with health risk profile and with reduced data privacy concerns. This framework contributes to ongoing discussions about establishing patient-practitioner engagement, based around patients' shared personal data collection.