Personal health records

The paper addresses the complex interplay between patients, healthcare professionals, and technology in relation to the treatment of chronic patients. It reflects on an ongoing interdisciplinary action research project striving to design and implement IT support for communication and collaboration in the distributed heterogeneous network of chronic patients and the healthcare professionals that take care of them. An interactive personal health record (PHR) has been designed as part of the project. As such it is part of a trend to find ways to include patients in their own care process. This has been motivated by expected health benefits for the patients as well as promises to lead to reduced costs for a burdened healthcare system.