Health Empowerment Technologies (HET): Building a Web-Based Tool to Empower Older African American Patient-Doctor Relationships

Responding to health and digital inequities among older African Americans, a customized web-based mobile health information intervention is being developed for this vulnerable group and their doctors as part of the Health Empowerment Technologies (HET) Project. The belief is an empowered patient-doctor relationship leads to more improved health outcomes than patient empowerment alone. Using health information technology to empower both older African Americans and their doctors by increasing health literacy and computer capacities of both is the major HET study aim. A focus group of older African American patients and one of their doctors yielded data to help build the HET. Thematic analysis of opinions and preferences about the content and structure of the HET revealed concordance and asymmetry among the patients and doctors. While challenges prevail in its construction, building this ethnicity-specific web-based health information technology presents the opportunity to integrate health information technology in clinical encounters for every patient.