Millennials, roughly anyone born between 1980 and 2001, make up a vital demographic within modern healthcare.\u00a0Many of them\u00a0are quite young and are newly experiencing their\u00a0first need for care or, possibly, even their first independent adult interaction\u00a0with our country’s healthcare system. And the data suggest that, so far, they hate it: a full 37% of millennials rate the current state of healthcare in America as “poor” or “terrible.”[1]<\/p>\n
This is unsustainable. Physicians who want to provide the best care for their patients will\u00a0have to find a way\u00a0to reach millennials at least somewhat on their own terms, or else risk alienating\u00a0them even more from the medical system. As it is, fewer\u00a0than half of millennials consider health insurance (46%), vaccinations (39%), or medication adherence (37%) to be part of their overall health and wellness, and 28 to 36% of them prefer\u00a0self-diagnosis and home treatment to visiting\u00a0a doctor.[1]<\/p>\n
Perhaps the easiest way to begin bridging\u00a0this divide is for traditional healthcare\u00a0to meet millennials where they spend their time: mobile and online. 85% of Americans aged 18 to 29 own a smartphone, compared to only 27% of those 65 or older, and 77% of them have used that phone to find information about a health condition.[2] This certainly suggests\u00a0that millennials might want to connect with their doctors online, too, but what does the evidence say?<\/p>\n
The evidence that exists shows\u00a0clearly that millennials want telehealth in all its various forms: online visits, appointment booking, mobile apps, wearables, etc. One major caveat is that all of these data\u00a0come from survey studies that were sponsored by organizations with a high likelihood of bias, such as telemedicine companies. However, the reported results are typically\u00a0dramatic enough\u00a0that the conclusions are\u00a0likely to be at least directionally correct.<\/p>\n
In one 2016 study of 2,025 American adults, for instance,\u00a0more\u00a0than half of surveyed 18- to\u00a034-year-olds\u00a0reliably indicated a clear preference for telehealth care options:[3]<\/p>\n
A separate study of 2,019 adults in 2014 found data to corroborate this, with 74% of respondents aged 18 to 34 indicating that they would consider seeing their doctor\u00a0for an online visit.[4] Concerningly, 11% of this same millennial demographic reported that they would even go so far as to switch doctors based on the availability of online visits, making them nearly four times as likely as\u00a0those 65 or older to feel this way.<\/p>\n
That same study also found that at least 70% of patients\u00a0would rather have an online visit with their doctor than travel to an office appointment when they need a prescription.[4] This was especially true for certain groups, such as people with children in the household, who were 67% more\u00a0likely\u00a0to prefer an online visit for middle-of-the-night care than other respondents in the study. Similarly, a full 42% of surveyed millennial women (ages 18 to 34) expressed interest in obtaining birth control through online visits.<\/p>\n
A third study, which surveyed 2,095 adults in 2015, also found a desire for telehealth among millennials (respondents aged 18 to 34):[5]<\/p>\n
Are these\u00a0data biased? Almost certainly. Are they\u00a0still so clear that they’re likely correct anyway? Yes, almost certainly. Furthermore, these studies\u00a0also agree with separate\u00a0reports\u00a0on how millennials are using the internet and their phones\u00a0for\u00a0banking, shopping, dating, and many other aspects\u00a0of their lives, so they pass the gut-feeling check for correctness.[2]<\/p>\n
The only real question now is how healthcare can catch up and catch up quickly. So\u00a0get your skateboards and cool sunglasses ready for telehealth; it’s time to take care of the young generation…online.<\/p>\n
References:<\/p>\n
Millennials, roughly anyone born between 1980 and 2001, make up a vital demographic within modern healthcare.\u00a0Many of them\u00a0are quite young and are newly experiencing their\u00a0first need for care or, possibly, even their first independent adult interaction\u00a0with our country’s healthcare system. And the data suggest that, so far, they hate it: a full 37% of millennials rate the current state of healthcare in America as “poor” or “terrible.”[1]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"slim_seo":{"title":"Millennials Want Doctors Who Use Telehealth: The Evidence - Spruce Blog","description":"Millennials, roughly anyone born between 1980 and 2001, make up a vital demographic within modern healthcare.\u00a0Many of them\u00a0are quite young and are newly experie"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13,5,4],"different-template":[],"class_list":["post-341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telemedicine","tag-literature","tag-telehealth","tag-telemedicine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341"},{"taxonomy":"different-template","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/different-template?post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}