ABSTRACT

One of the most impressive changes our society is the growth of what many call the Web Economy. The Web Economy is a new way of doing business, whereby companies use information and technology as facilitators of communication, data transfer, and commercial transactions. Evidence of the web economy in the healthcare ecosystem abounds. An array of digital health tools, such as personal health records, various mobile health applications, as well as patient portals, have emerged with the sole purpose to help patients better participate in their own care. Healthcare provider organizations have sought to advance patient engagement by leveraging personal health information and data. Personalizing arguably reflects the broadest array of content and tools provider organizations offer users of their website. To harness the varied constituents of this domain into a coherent format, the content and tools under this domain can be collated into the following three components: empowering access, empowering control and optimizing empowerment.