Interacting with eHealth: towards grand challenges for HCI

While health records are increasingly stored electronically, we have little access to this data about ourselves. We're not used to thinking of these official records either as ours or as something we'd understand if we had access to them in any case. We increasingly turn to the Web, however, to query any ache, pain or health goal we may have before consulting with health care professionals. Likewise, for proactive health care, such as nutrition or fitness, or post diagnosis support, to find fellow-sufferers, we turn to online resources. There is, it seems, a potential disconnect between points at which professional and proactive health care intersect. Such gaps in information sharing may have direct impact on practices we decide to take up, the care we seek, and the support professionals offer. In this panel, we consider several places within proactive, preventative health care in particular HCI has a role towards enhancing health knowledge discovery and health support interaction. Our goal is to demonstrate how now is the time for eHealth to come to the forefront of the HCI research agenda.