Design and implementation considerations for a personalized patient education system in burn care

Patient education is a significant factor in the provision of health care services, contributing to improved disease management and health care outcomes. Personalization has been suggested as a means for increasing patient education effectiveness and computer-based approaches have been explored as a possible means of achieving this goal. The success and capabilities of the resulting applications have been restricted by the absence of a direct link to patient data and the reliance on locally produced written material, which is expensive to produce, update and tailor. In our research project STructured Evaluated Personalized Patient Support (STEPPS), we are investigating the potential of a novel strategy for personalized or tailored patient education, based on the integration of electronic patient record data and material derived from online health information resources. In this paper we present an overview of the pertinent technical issues and the way we have addressed them in the context of our development work in the domain of burn care. Further, we discuss how the choices made in the design of the system interrelate with the considerations for its implementation in health care practice settings. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.