The internet has revolutionized the way we live our lives. Over 60% of people nationally now have access to the internet. Healthcare is not immune to this phenomenon. We aimed to assess level of access to the internet within our practice population and gauge the level of internet use by these patients and ascertain what characteristics define these individuals. A questionnaire based study. Patients attending a mixture of trauma and elective outpatient clinics in the public and private setting were invited to complete a self-designed questionnaire. Details collected included basic demographics, education level, number of clinic visits, history of surgery, previous clinic satisfaction, body area affected, whether or not they had internet access, health insurance and by what means had they researched their orthopedic complaint.Background
Method