Empowering patients through healthcare technology and information? The challenge of becoming a Patient 2.0

Abstract

In the mid-2000s, the term Patient 2.0 began to be used to denote a new patient role: empowered patients. Transformation of the traditional healthcare system remains on the agenda, and it continues to challenge the traditional view of the patient role. Based on empirical field studies, interviews and written material, we argue that changes to socio-material assemblages may have implications beyond the immediate gains. To accurately reflect this, Mort et al. (2003) suggested using the terms remote doctors and absent patients. Likewise, Oudshoorn (2008) highlighted how the absence of face-to-face interaction implies that healthcare professionals rely more on numerical representations of illness than on observations of patients. Through ethnographic research in the Danish healthcare sector, we discuss how this healthcare vision manifests in practice. Technologies aimed at patient empowerment change how patients are framed in established networks; the emergent chronic patient frame challenges the traditional patient-doctor relationships.