Engaging and Empowering Patients with Consumer eHealth Solutions - Fostering Patient Expertise

Abstract

Health care spending is increasing worldwide. Many countries are anticipating a health care spending crisis. eHealth is seen as a way of introducing efficiencies and benefits into the system, partly by increasing the possibility of having patients manage their own care. The author looks at patient-centred care and its associated benefits, and suggests that the way to maximize those benefits moving forward is (in part) by engaging and empowering patients with eHealth solutions designed with patient expertise in mind. Generally speaking, eHealth solutions can help to foster a high level of patient expertise among some patients, who can then engage other patients in robust online patient communities, thus generating more benefits system-wide.

Keywords: patient centred care, eHealth, patient expertise, expertise, bioethics, health policy

JEL Classification: I18, I11, H51