Using Technology to Empower People With Multiple Sclerosis (MS) to Make Shared Decisions About Managing Their Own Healthcare

Abstract

In 2014, the UK National Health Service (NHS) ‘Five Year Forward View' plan set out key objectives to reform the NHS, which included empowering the population as a whole (particularly those with long-term health conditions) to take more responsibility for managing their own healthcare and introducing initiatives to use technology to improve services and reduce costs. The “Long Term Plan” explains how the 2014 initiatives will be further developed. This chapter presents a review of literature on digital health information and information usability. It presents the key findings from a mixed methods study that explored how people with MS (PwMS) access and use health digital information when trying to manage their MS. While the study found that there is much good quality digital health information available for PwMS, and that this facilitates shared decisions, some necessary information is still missing. The chapter concludes with recommendations for digital health information providers.