Health literacy is a prerequisite for well being in the developed world with five out of five ailments being treatable by patients themselves given access to appropriate information.
However, when symptoms appear, it is often difficult for a patient to make the right decision even given access to suitable health information and deciding whether their ailment is the one out of five that requires a health professional becomes a difficult task.
Researchers in Romania have developed a web-based approach — design for all (DFA) — solution to the problem of personal health assessment that guides a user through a symptom-orientated process and their medical history in order to determine whether or not a health professional is required or whether a patient can manage their own treatment with appropriate, rest and over-the-counter medication.
Writing in the International Journal of Knowledge and Web Intelligence, Paulina Mitrea of the Technical University Cluj-Napoca, and colleagues, explain the development of their e-health system, which exploits what they refer to as a “highly sophisticated medical rules-engine.”
