Impact of consumer health informatics applications

"Many people are excited about the potential to improve the health of the public by using health information technology (health IT) and eHealth solutions that are tailored to consumers. Despite growing interest in this field referred to as consumer health informatics (CHI), the value of CHI applications has not been rigorously reviewed. The objectives of this report were to review the literature on the evidence of the influence of currently developed CHI applications on health and health care process outcomes, to identify the gaps in the CHI literature, and to make recommendations for future CHI research. For the purposes of this review, CHI is defined as any electronic tool, technology, or electronic application that is designed to interact directly with consumers, with or without the presence of a health care professional that provides or uses individualized (personal) information and provides the consumer with individualized assistance, to help the patient better manage their health or health care."--P. 1.