Report of the Consumer Health Information Task Force for the AMIA Board
July 2000

The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) addresses an emerging area known as "consumer informatics". This is an area in which IFMBE has interests as well. Examples include home health monitoring and wellness applications. AMIA's Task Force has posted its report outlining consumer health informatics issues within AMIA and it is available at www.amia.org/about/chi_report_6-2000.html (editor).

Background

At its meeting in Boston, the Task Force met with AMIA President Patti Brennan and outlined a plan for providing an interim report to the AMIA Board of Directors for discussion at the 9 July 2000 board meeting. The purpose of the interim report was to outline consumer health informatics issues for the Board to consider during its strategic planning discussions and for inclusion in its planning document. This planning document, a draft plan, will be discussed with the AMIA membership at the fall meeting. Therefore, to meet the deadlines, those who attended the Task Force meeting outlined objectives based on all of the discussion the Task Force had had up to that point via phone and e mail. At the same time, they attempted to fit them under the major goals already outlined by the Board.

This draft was sent by e-mail to all Task Force members for comment. These objectives were then given to a subcommittee of the Board appointed by Dr Brennan and the attached report was written so that it could be presented to the entire Board. The action of the Board is noted at the end. There was a Board subcommittee assigned to each major goal, so the subcommittees have been asked to consider the recommended objectives. The Task Force members should be pleased that there is an excellent possibility that the objectives will be put before the membership in November and those who can should try to attend the discussion. There is still work for the Task Force to do, but this interim report succeeded in raising important issues at a critical time.

Report to the Board

In 1999, several AMIA working groups proposed activities addressing consumer health informatics initiatives, including establishing guidelines for evaluating the quality of web-based consumer health information and standards for developing consumer health websites. To leverage disparate activities more effectively and to establish the proper level of Association commitment, a task force was established to advise the Board on the Association's participation in the consumer health informatics arena. Bonnie Kaplan, PhD, chairs the task force and Joan Ash, PhD, serves as the Board liaison to the group. The task force has met via phone, email and in person throughout the spring. While their work is not complete, they are providing an interim report for integration with the Board's strategic planning discussion.

The task force recommends that AMIA deliberately and explicitly include consumer health informatics as a valid component of medical informatics. It recommends that AMIA become the premier membership and peer communication organisation for supporting multidisciplinary research, development and deployment of consumer health informatics innovations. Additionally, the Task Force provides for the Board's consideration the following objectives to address specific goals within the strategic plan:

GoalAction
Promote informatics as a field
  1. Promote collaboration with consumers in the development of health information technology resources relevant to them.
  2. Ensure that we are mindful of ethical principles regarding the use of information technology in health that concern patients as well as providers.
Promote research, development, and diffusion of informatics to solve healthcare problems and improve health quality
  1. Promote multidisciplinary research, development and diffusion of tools which support partnerships between consumers and providers, especially considering the social and behavioural implications
Foster co-operation and establish relationships with relevant organizations
  1. Include among these organisations informatics, advocacy, and policy organisations that address consumer health.
Expand and maintain multiple fora for interchange and dissemination of advances in the field
  1. Provide opportunities for non-member consumers, as valued co-creators of health care, to participate in AMIA conferences.
  2. Disseminate advances in consumer health informatics both within and outside of AMIA.
  3. Address education and curriculum issues in consumer health informatics.

AMIA Board Action

The Board discussed the report at its meeting on July 9, 2000. It took action as follows: The document "will be sent to the original Board Task Groups associated with the various strategic plan goals. The Task Groups will be charged with defining how the proposed objectives fit into current objectives or if new objectives need to be integrated into current ones."