Information Therapy: Bridging the information gap between doctors and patients

Abstract

Lack of understanding of medical terms and healthcare information by patients can lead to adverse health outcomes and decreased satisfaction with the clinician and medical encounter. Moreover, due to advent of information technology, lot of health and medical information is available on World Wide Web. However, the information available is not reliable and trustworthy and cause serious consequences. Therefore, the right information should reach right person at the right time in order to support the patient in making health-related decisions. Information therapy (Ix) is an attempt to provide patients with the timely, adequate and evidence-based health information for making informed decision regarding their treatment. The information provided should be relevant, accurate, complete, reliable, easy to understand and practical. Ix is exactly like treatment prescription by a physician but it also includes reference to healthcare information resources to patients following a clinical visit. The patients or the care takers after going through these resources can understand their medical condition and may raise patient satisfaction, leads to better health outcomes and reduce medical errors. Ix is a cost-effective solution that allows the healthcare industry to patient-centered care. It also allows patients to serve themselves, and save doctors precious time, which ultimately helps to utilize limited resources in an efficient way, especially in developing countries. Ix is a need of the hour in todays world, however, scope is limited by the challenges like inadequate literacy level of population, poor IT access to majority rural population, limited resources to develop right information and lack of information specialists and medical librarians in developing countries.

South East Asia Journal of Public Health Vol.4(2) 2014: 47-50