A framework for addressing young adults’ trust issues concerning mobile access to electronic health records

Abstract

Electronic health records (EHRs) are used by health care agents for capturing and monitoring of data relevant to the young adults visiting health care centres. An EHR system is referred to as broad record of a patient’s health history that can be used by the patient’s health care agents to diagnose patient health status. However, young adults have developed trust issues using their mobile devices to access these electronic health records. The aim of this study was to investigate the young adults’ trust issues concerning mobile access to electronic health records. This study employed a quantitative, survey design to collect data. A total of 200 young people were selected making use of a convenience sampling technique, with a response rate of 81.0%. Data was analysed making use of descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlation. The key finding of this study is that the lack of legislation that governs EHRs, user training and commitment, and poor ICT infrastructure results in young adults’ mistrust in sharing their medical information. The study concludes by proposing a framework to improve trust in EHRs among young adults. The framework consists of 2 factors, integrity and ability of EHRs to improve health care, which are important to consider when investigating trust issues of young adults using mobile EHRs. The study makes three recommendations to the National Department of Health (DoH) around revisiting the e-Health strategy in South Africa, improving EHRs infrastructure and services in South Africa and finally providing education and training to users of mobile devices at the University of Fort Hare, South Africa.