Interactive Computer Based Medical Home Guide

This application will develop an interactive computer-based medical home guide for consumerswhich will improve their medical decision making behavior. This will be accomplished by developing aninteractive computerized medical self-care decision making interface to enter and analyze some of themost common health related issues for female patients aged 18-55. An analysis structure and flowchart will direct the user through a series of questions and medical decision making branches, to provideappropriate messages and proper courses of action to follow. Related referenced text will also bedeveloped to correspond to the decisions, along with personal family and medical history forms, amedical incident diary, a medication record keeping system, and a series of medical guidelines. Duringthe development of the software program and flow charts, formative and process evaluations will beconducted with medical and behavioral experts, older student end-users, and nurse educationprofessionals. The innovative features of the medical self-care software program will make this systema comprehensive and effective means of delivering health information to female patients, and thuscompetitive in the health promotion and wellness marketplace. During Phase II, the developed softwareprogram will be field tested in a family health care center and expand medical issues to the concerns ofmales.