A Health Information System that Extends Healthcare Professional-Patient Communication

Communication between healthcare professionals and patients as part of the therapeutic process is often restricted to short, episodic face-to-face encounters within healthcare institutions. The absence of a continuous communication process that extends the face-to-face encounter to include the therapeutic process outside the institution limits the support and guidance healthcare professionals can provide, and in turn negatively affects patients’ adherence, health outcomes, and overall healthcare costs. This paper introduces the notion of interaction-templates that structure communication between healthcare professionals and patients along the entire therapeutic process. The presented health information system (HIS) prototype implements a follow-up and guidance process triggered by the face-to-face encounter, combining predefined interaction-templates and dialog functions enabling individual, situation-dependent communication. Analysis of data generated with the prototype will provide a better understanding of the structure, form, and content of communication in HIS that extend healthcare professional-patient communication.