1997 Partnerships for Networked Consumer Health Information Conference

Summaries of Plenary Sessions and Breakout Sessions

Response to Keynote: Panel 1 - Redefining the Roles of Health Professionals

Tuesday, April 15, 1997
10:15 - 11:15 AM

Moderator: Donald M. Vickery, MD, Chairman & Chief Medical Officer, Health Decisions International

Respondent: Albert Mulley, Jr., MD, MPP, Chief of General Internal Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, Response on Behalf of Physicians

Respondent: Charles L. Jacobson, MD, Executive Vice President, Premier, Charlotte, NC, Response on Behalf of Provider Organizations

Respondent: Caswell A. Evans, DDS, MPH, Director of Public Health Initiatives, Department of Health Services, Los Angeles County, CA, Response on Behalf of Public Health

Respondent: Beverly Malone, PhD, RN, FAAN, President of the American Nurses Association, Response on Behalf of Nurses

Statement of the Subject

Will Networked Consumer Health Information (NCHI) change the roles of health professionals? Implied questions are

1. How will NCHI change the behavior of patients? and
2. Do changes in patient behavior require changes in provider behavior?

Key Issues

How will patients use NCHI in their relationships with physicians and other health care providers? Will physicians and other health care providers encourage or discourage the use of NCHI? What are the differences between physicians, nurses and other health care providers in their attitudes toward NCHI and its use by their patients? Will NCHI create demand for new kinds of health care providers?

Roles, Responsibilities, and Priorities

Individuals should consider whether they have a responsibility to be informed and, if so, how NCHI will play a role and how they will gauge the quality of NCHI. Physicians should consider their legal and ethical responsibility to inform and involve patients in their own care, a responsibility that is often neglected. Further, they must consider whether they truly welcome informed and educated patients and, if so, what role NCHI will play and how they will influence NCHI.

Nurses should consider whether they already occupy a unique position between patients and sources of health information. If so, the widespread availability of NCHI could dramatically increase their role in health care. Further, what challenges will this expanded role present to nurses in terms of training and preparation as well as their ability to influence change in the health care system?

Next Steps

• A survey and assessment of current impacts of NCHI on the roles of patients and health professionals should be conducted.
• Pilot projects that allow experimentation with new provider roles in the presence of NCHI should be undertaken.
• The implications of NCHI with respect to the roles of health professionals should be explored with those that make health policy, i.e., members of local, state and federal governments.

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