What Is Consumer Health Informatics?

The use of electronic technology allows for a more efficient and standardized method of facilitating health care information. Consumer health informatics is a field of study that includes technology and better patient involvement to provide advantages and benefits to the health care system.

Definition

• The American Medical Informatics Association defines consumer health informatics as a form of medical information technology geared towards delivering better health-related decision-making based from the consumer's perspective. Through electronic technology, it provides a better outcome in terms of information exchange and communication between patients and health care providers.

Features

• The patient serves as the main resource of the consumer health informatics. Health care providers obtain pertinent information to create an electronic patient medical record. Other sources of information are obtained from patient interviews and laboratory tests and examinations. The use of computer software and other electronic tools and communication systems is the main feature of consumer health informatics.

Tools

• Consumer health informatics use tools such as telecommunications and electronic systems as a means to optimize the retrieval, storage and recording of health information. It uses standard medical terminologies in nursing and medical care in its communication system. It utilizes other mediums for storing and sharing medical information to patients like video and audio tapes, computer discs, brochures and computer-generated fact sheets to involve patients in their treatments and screenings.

Benefits

• Health providers have better way to communicate with patients and involve them in their treatments.

  Adopting consumer health informatics in the health care system facilitates improved partnership between medical providers and their patients. With the use of secure computer software, patients are given access to their electronic medical records. Patients get a better understanding of their conditions with the help of their physicians during consultations. Patients are more involved in making decisions regarding their health and have a better understanding of treatment options, risks, and benefits. This technology is applicable in clinical care, nursing care, dentistry, pharmacy, biomedical research and public health.

Considerations

• The study of Research Triangle Institute for the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) reveals that the development of the consumer health informatics is more focused on the effects of a system's tools on a patient's knowledge and satisfaction than it is on health behavior and outcomes.

Potential

• The development of consumer health informatics can potentially strengthen the patient's active participation in decision-making concerning their health. There is better facilitation of information concerning treatment; risks and benefits and a better understanding of medical conditions. Physicians, health care managers and professionals have better ways of establishing rapport with their patients through the technology of telecommunication and computer systems, and patients have better access to their medical records.