Personal health information management: consumers' perspectives

AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2006:2006:156-60.

Abstract

Personal health information management (PHIM) refers to activities that support consumers' access, integration, organization, and use of their personal health information. We investigated PHIM in the health consumer population using a focus group and participatory design. In collaboration with health consumers, we identified PHIM activities and explored the design of new supportive technology. Our findings describe prominent PHIM activities such as monitoring and assessing health, as well as health-related decision making, planning, and action. We describe design principles our participants used during the participatory design of a PHIM tool. These include individual control, sharing, integration, security and flexibility. These findings provide new insights into emerging ideas in consumer health informatics research and technology design. Understanding health consumers' PHIM needs is an important step in creating technology to support these needs.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Access to Information*
  • Community Participation*
  • Consumer Behavior
  • Focus Groups
  • Humans
  • Information Management*
  • Information Services
  • Medical Informatics*
  • Medical Records*