This central role
means patients must
store, maintain, and
retrieve many kinds of
personal health information,
ranging from medication
schedules to information
researched online about their
conditions, to referrals, to contact
information for individual clinicians. It also takes a
variety of forms, including phone calls, email, paper
documents, and Web pages (see Figure 2). Over time,
patients accumulate an overwhelming amount of this
information, which is inextricably intertwined with
their personal and professional lives—and need support
to manage it.