Consumer Health Information Technology

Abstract

Health information management is an integral part of health and healthcare management for patients and informal caregivers, yet it can be complex and labor intensive. In recent years, the development and use of consumer health information technology (IT) applications meant to support patient and caregiver health information and health management tasks have increased. Although some of these applications have demonstrated a positive impact on health outcomes, the overall use remains low due, in part, to ergonomics issues with their design, implementation, and use. This chapter describes health information management complexities and the consumer health IT landscape, summarizes the evidence regarding the effectiveness of consumer health IT, and presents considerations of ergonomics issues throughout the consumer health IT design lifecycle. Design, implementation, and use considerations are illustrated through two vignettes that describe patient and caregiver use of a patient portal, a type of consumer health IT application. The chapter concludes with recommendations to approach consumer health IT to improve the work of patients and caregivers, engage users throughout the design lifecycle of consumer health IT, use existing ergonomics knowledge and resources, and iterate cyclically to achieve better usefulness and usability of consumer health IT.