Navigation in internet-based personal healthcare records: for consumers who think

Abstract

Internet-based personal healthcare records (PHRs) are designed to be created and maintained by individual healthcare consumers, based on their own understanding of their health conditions. Based on historical hypertext systems and working from a series of consumer use cases, we examine the options for end-user navigation in PHR systems. A prototype Internet-based system to support four paradigms of navigation – document-centred, node-centred, path-centred and graph-based – has been implemented. The system supports PHR organisation and annotation, as well as discussion of contents among stakeholders (e.g., doctor and patient). The architecture demonstrates the integration of existing packages on the client and server ends, including use of the widely-installed Adobe Acrobat. The system is intended to provide some of the appropriate tools for the upand-coming variety of health consumer who wishes to be an active participant in their own healthcare, who wishes to understand and contemplate their health record. Both user interface and architectural design aspects are offered as concept templates for PHR system implementation.