Information Technology for Patient Empowerment in Healthcare

Preface

Not so long ago, health care was organized around what physicians did; it is now undergoing a fundamental re-organization around meeting the needs of patients. This change is not based upon the sudden evolution of health care providers to some more altruistic state, or the seizure of power by patient advocates. This change reflects progress in our understanding of the real challenges we face in health care delivery, and enhancement of our ability to meet them.

For practical purposes, the earlier physician-centric era can be defined as the period before the 1999 publication of To Err is Human by the Institute of Medicine (IOM). Before that report, the widespread assumption in health care was that quality was basically just fine, and ...