Interactive Computerized Health Care Education

The Patient Education and Activation System (PEAS) project aims to prepare people to take a more active role in their health care decisions. In this paper, the authors describe their work on the Layman Education and Activation Form (LEAF). LEAF is designed to be an interactive, Internet-based system for collecting a patient's medical history. It is unique in that it gives patients access to educational information when it is most pertinent, while they are attempting to complete a form. It avoids overwhelming the patient, by providing information only when it is likely to be relevant. The system avoids asking irrelevant questions or providing irrelevant facts by tailoring the content of the form to the patient's responses. The system also uses the patient's answers to suggest questions that the patient might ask a doctor and provides online resources that the patient can browse.