Intelligent Portals for Supporting Medical Information Needs

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to review the way portal technology can assist users seeking medical information. There has been an increase in health Internet usage, and better health-care delivery outcomes are predicted as users are better informed when making medical decisions. At the same time, there is much concern about the need for medical portals to meet community information needs. This chapter discusses what constitutes an intelligent portal, discusses desirable portal components and attributes of intelligent portal features, and how these can be implemented to meet the needs of diverse users. Seven Australian medical Web sites have been analysed according to intelligence features. The results and analysis are presented and discussed, in particular, with respect to their functionality as defined for intelligent portals. The discussion is focused on the extent to which these attributes help users with their information seeking and therefore support their decision-making processes.