Online banking use and income level, from Online Shopping, Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2008

Use of online banking is a good proxy for patient access to their electronic health record because it requires a combination of convenience and confidence to make it compelling. The Pew Internet & American Life Project just released another excellent report on Online Shopping that includes data about this. Incidentally, 49 % have purchased a product online. Is that number higher or lower than you thought?

In my work, I use the online banking figures because even when the overall penetration was 18 % in 2002, providing these services was felt to be very compelling to the populations I worked with. That is now the number for the populations reporting the lowest household income in this survey.