Empowering Patients Through Transparency and Technology

A research team at Harvard will seek to develop a conceptual framework to explain how health data
transparency mobilizes patients and helps patients achieve specific health objectives. The team will also
inventory data‐sharing platforms for patient engagement and develop a comparative typology of the models’
design features, populations served, and modes of engagement employed. The qualitative and quantitative
data collected through this process will be illustrated in eight comparative case studies. If this work is
successful, the team will propose a second phase of work to empirically test different platforms, with the goal
of identifying the design attributes and conditions most critical for turning data availability into patient
engagement.

This study will show how the sharing of health care information with patients can be optimized to promote
behavioral change and engagement in care. This work could also stimulate experimentation in online and mobile
health tool development. Dissemination of project findings will target the designers and funders of patient
engagement tools and platforms, care providers, and policymakers.