Presentation slides (Farshid Anvari's section only)

Author

Enrico Coiera, Annie Lau, and Farshid Anvari (University of New South Wales)

Abstract

At the Centre for Health Informatics, University of New South Wales, we are developing a new online research platform for healthcare consumers, called healthy.me. Through this platform, we are seeking to answer compelling questions about how Internet technologies shape and support the way healthcare consumers manage their health and decision-making. We think of healthy.me as a “Facebook for healthcare”, where consumers are encouraged to actively engage in the management of their health in a trusted environment. The concept “Healthbook” was one of the top 5 health ideas at the Australia 2020 Summit.

Healthy.me contains an online personal health record that allows consumers to store their personal health information, share it with those they have given consent, and utilise available services to manage their health together as a team. In addition, we are planning several novel designs using Web and social technologies to enrich consumers’ online experience, promoting an online social environment where consumers actively engage and interact with each other, generating networks of communities over time, and tracking their behaviour on a longitudinal basis. Intersect Australia Ltd has participated in the design of the user interface. Overall, we are interested in designing a new model for consumers to manage their health as well as evaluating how this new model of care supports consumers through different stages of their health.

About the speakers

Dr Annie Lau is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Informatics, University of New South Wales (UNSW). She has qualifications in Health Informatics (PhD UNSW 2007) and Software Engineering (BE Hons I UNSW 2001). She is currently working in the area of healthcare consumer decision support, using Web and social technologies to design an online portal, healthy.me, for healthcare consumers to manage their health and support their health decision-making. Annie's research interests lie in identifying cognitive and social factors that adversely influence the way people make health decisions and their health behaviours, and designing interventions to minimise the impact of these factors.

Farshid Anvari is responsible for architecting solutions and leading the development team for implementation of Healthy Me under the direction of Professor Enrico Coiera, Director of Centre for Health Informatics at the University of New South Wales.

Prior to UNSW, he worked for more than six years at Special Broadcasting Service where he designed the automated digital channel system for SBS Essential which was highly commended in the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association awards for cost-effective engineering.

He also has more than twelve years of experience in Power Engineering, specialising in hydro system modelling and reliability studies.

He holds a Graduate Diploma of Information Technology (USQ 1998), a Graduate Diploma of Science (UTAS 1996) and a Bachelor of Engineering (Swinburne 1984).

His professional interests are architecting and building systems that are economical, robust and reliable.