Functional Assessment of Currently Employed Technology Scale (FACETS)

Introduction: Insurers, institutional and independent providers of health care have made increasing use of websites for patient communication, in the absence of data indicating that patients, especially older adults, utilize information technology (IT). The Functional Assessment of Currently Employed Technology Scale (FACETS) was designed to determine patient frequency of internet and IT utilization across age groups. FACETS is a 10-item questionnaire assessing 5 functional domains, with high internal consistency reliability, strong general factor validity, and strong factor validity for the five domains. FACETS data indicate that IT utilization declines significantly with increasing age beyond 60 years. Findings also indicate that people over age 65 are not a homogenous population with regard to IT use, nor is IT use a homogenous category. FACETS demonstrates that use of websites for communicating with older adult populations might create a barrier to access to health care. It is suggested that health care protocols for working with older adults should include internet and IT utilization as a specific area of assessment or treatment.