Methods: A convenience sample of patients in our rheumatology clinic at the Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center completed a brief survey printed on paper. This survey assessed their access to technology, speed of responding to messages, barriers to technology use, and acceptability of various technologies as a means of communicating with their healthcare providers (0 to 10 Likert scale). Linear regression was used to explore the relationship of age and gender to the acceptability of each communication modality.

Results: The mean age of subjects (n=50) was 56 years, 84% were male, and 96% spoke English as their primary language. A majority had access to a computer (84%) and possessed an email address (78%). Similarly, 84% possessed a mobile phone; of those who possessed a mobile phone, 57.4% and 66.7%, respectively, had internet and texting ability. Of those who had texting, 28.2% found the cost of texting prohibitive for communicating with healthcare providers. The acceptability of various modalities (a score of at least 5 on the 10 point scale) as a means of contact with their healthcare providers was as follows: telephone call (80%), email (56%), internet-based portal (54%) and texting (42%). In a linear regression predicting the level of acceptability of each technology for communicating with the healthcare provider, only age was associated with texting. For every 10 years increase in age, the acceptability of texting declined by 1.4 points (95% CI -2.2 to -0.5, p-value 0.002).

Conclusion: Many of our patients have access to various communication modalities. Individual veterans display preferences for each of the modalities, but the majority wishes to communicate with their healthcare providers via telephone. Age only predicts the acceptability of texting, where increasing age was associated with less enthusiasm for this form of communication.