Building Common Ground for Communication between Patients and Community Pharmacists with an Internet Medicine Cabinet

Increased levels of patient satisfaction and compliance are found when they assertively participate in clinical conversations. The Internet may be able to aid communication between the patient and the community pharmacist, particularly if the patient is in control of their record. We propose an Internet Medicine Cabinet that affords this aid by providing “common ground” for conversations. This should provide concrete objects for patient-pharmacist communication and allow online storage of current medication details, recording of problems / issues related to medication, and online education facilities. These first two functions have been implemented in a prototype service called Winston. In collaboration with the Adelaide Women's and Children's Hospital, oncology and asthma patients are being enrolled in a trial wherein they maintain their own online records to share with their community pharmacists. We report the rationale, architecture, usability testing results and future plans for Winston.