Ethnography Essay: Why are Dialysis Patients under-informed?
After completing my researching and collected my data I found a theory that appeared to explain my data. My theory is that the dialysis clinics are not making a proper effort to inform their patients on the benefits of using smartphone applications to manage their difficult lifestyle. In the beginning, I had assumed it was the patients lack of interest that kept them from using the applications. Then after distributing my surveys and conducting my post- survey interviews I found that most participants were actually very interested in learning about these applications. Their interest disproved my first theory and also my next which was based on their age. My second theory was that their age prevented them from being able to use and understand the applications. This was also disproved when it became evident that over 80% of the dialysis patients had smartphones and knew how to use them. My current theory of the lack of teaching by the clinics only has two shortcomings. One is that there are two major companies that control the entirety of dialysis, DaVita and Fersenius, and I only interviewed patients from Fersenius. This shortcoming can be excused because Fersenius treats almost 100,000 more patients per year, making Fersenius almost 60% bigger than DaVita. Due to its size, it can be expected that its practices are much more widespread and that their lack of teaching effects more patients. Another possible major shortcoming is also the patients age. Although this might not be the primary reason why they are so under-informed, it is still a factor. One of patients told me about how many people over look her because of her age. She said that she enjoys technology and has always been intrigued to learn new things, but often younger people ignore her because they thing she will either will not understand it or not be able to learn the new skill.
