title: The Role of eHealth in Optimizing Preventive Care in the Primary Care Setting.
abstract: Modifiable health risk behaviors such as smoking, overweight and obesity, risky alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, and poor nutrition contribute to a substantial proportion of the world's morbidity and mortality burden. General practitioners (GPs) play a key role in identifying and managing modifiable health risk behaviors. However, these are often underdetected and undermanaged in the primary care setting. We describe the potential of eHealth to help patients and GPs to overcome some of the barriers to managing health risk behaviors. In particular, we discuss (1) the role of eHealth in facilitating routine collection of patient-reported data on lifestyle risk factors, and (2) the role of eHealth in improving clinical management of identified risk factors through provision of tailored feedback, point-of-care reminders, tailored educational materials, and referral to online self-management programs. Strategies to harness the capacity of the eHealth medium, including the use of dynamic features and tailoring to help end users engage with, understand, and apply information need to be considered and maximized. Finally, the potential challenges in implementing eHealth solutions in the primary care setting are discussed. In conclusion, there is significant potential for innovative eHealth solutions to make a contribution to improving preventive care in the primary care setting. However, attention to issues such as data security and designing eHealth interfaces that maximize engagement from end users will be important to moving this field forward.
authors.affiliation: Health Behaviour Research Group, Priority Research Centre for Health Behaviour, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, Australia. Mariko.Carey@newcastle.edu.au.
authors.forename: Mariko
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0549-1115
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Carey
authors.forename: Natasha
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4751-1644
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Noble
authors.forename: Elise
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7938-8401
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mansfield
authors.forename: Amy
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0987-9424
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Waller
authors.forename: Frans
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2358-5630
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Henskens
authors.forename: Rob
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6022-2949
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sanson-Fisher
mesh_terms: D058005:General Practitioners; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D019095:Point-of-Care Systems; D011314:Preventive Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration; D011320:Primary Health Care; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D012307:Risk Factors; D012648:Self Care; D017216:Telemedicine
keywords: Internet; eHealth; evidence-based practice; family practice; general practice; prevention