Practicing information therapy in self-care: A solution to the rise in health care costs

Abstract

Self-care is what people do for themselves to establish and maintain health, prevent and deal with illness. It is also seen as a solution to the global rise in health care costs placed on governments. This is an important aspect as it is estimated that 70% to 95% of all illnesses are managed without the intervention of a doctor. A big challenge in self-care is keeping the patient informed about relevant medical treatment information. We have studied the suitability of information therapy and the Semantic Web technologies in solving this challenge. Information therapy refers to the prescription of specific evidence based medical information to specific patients at just the right time to help them make specific health decisions or behavior changes. The information prescription should include all information, which is relevant while including as few non-relevant information as possible. How this goal can be achieved from technology point of view is the main contribution of this paper. The key components in our proposed solutions are the notions of structured clinical guidelines and clinical guideline pathways, as well as their integration with PHRs (Personal Health Records).