Towards a comprehensive understanding of health information needs

Abstract

Healthcare organisations are increasingly developing and deploying Health Information Systems that target healthcare consumers. To ensure effective and engaging Health Information Systems requires identifying the potential information needs of these consumers. However a comprehensive systematic understanding of their information needs is lacking. This paper proposes a conceptual
framework based on Luft and Ingham’s Johari window that can be used to identify, organise and abstract potential information needs of these consumers. The conceptual framework illustrates four
abstract groups of information needs: recognised demanded, unrecognised demanded, recognised undemanded, and unrecognised undemanded. The paper highlights the potential usefulness of the framework for information providers and systems designers.