Personalised Hypertext Explanations for Patient Education

Introduction: Computer-based Patient Education The importance of providing the public with more information about health issues is widely accepted. Indeed, recent studies have shown that, by providing asthma patients with personalised booklets about their condition, hospital admissions were reduced by 54% [OAB + 94]. One way of improving patient education is to provide computer-based access points where patients can browse through information screens explaining medical concepts. It has been demonstrated that such systems, if carefully designed, are considered helpful by patients [JNM93]. One good starting point for such systems is the patient's medical record. It is now a legal requirement (in the UK at least) that doctors provide patients with access to their records. Where such records are computerised this can be conveniently provided (given a suitable interface) through the computer. Access to records can further provide a motivating starting point for an e