This paper describes ongoing study that examines problems with existing patient health information sources and investigates an approach for linking (i.e. integrating) data from a patient's medical record(s) with relevant health information on the web. The aim is to provide patients with simplified, customized and controlled access to web information. Data from patient medical records are extracted and linked with relevant health information on the web through a web search service. These are made available to patients through a web portal that we refer to as the patient knowledge base (PatientKB). Our integration approach utilizes term semantics (i.e. meaning) to enrich the web search and simplify medical terms for patients. In the current implementation, patients have guided, secure and relatively customized access to basic and relevant web information on their diagnoses. Future implementation will attempt to achieve further customization, extensibility and safety features. This paper investigates how ideas presented in an earlier study can be implemented.
Patient information is one aspect of meeting the needs of health service users; it is meant to empower patients and their carers in making informed decisions and managing their health needs. Mary Dixon-Woods described two types of discourse in patient education: the first is more concerned with making patients comply with their doctors orders and the second is about empowering patients and rejecting direction. This article looks at the aims of the two and shows that neither is capable of supporting highly successful best practice within medicine. Instead, a hybrid set of strategic aims are proposed for patient education created by merging the two discourses in the same way that John Dewey merged the child-centred and child-led schools of thought in education. These hybrid strategic aims for patient education are then used to develop requirements for an information system to support patient education, using a mixture of system centric and user centric approaches.
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