title: The consumer health gap: are we innovating for the future or simply addressing the past?
abstract: The pace of adoption of consumer health solutions appears to be slow, despite some documented success. Reasons why the health system is not embracing this success are complex but not entirely unexpected. The barriers continue to be more a reflection of the state of our health system itself than of the patients who are demanding more involvement in the management of their care. The solution may lie in our willingness to be bolder in our vision for our future health system: for consumer health solutions to drive our focus on the management of chronic illness and self-care. The investments we make will require a measured prioritizing of the patient over the provider in building the health information technology systems of tomorrow.
authors.affiliation: Lead, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, The Techna Institute, University Health Network, Associate Professor, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto.
authors.forename: Joseph A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Cafazzo
mesh_terms: D020811:Biomedical Technology / Q000639:trends*; D054626:Consumer Health Information / Q000639:trends*; D057286:Electronic Health Records / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D033283:Patient Access to Records / Q000639:trends*; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000639:trends*; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000639:trends*