Brief Update

I've not been posting to my blogs for the past two weeks because I've been working round-the-clock to get the Personal Health Profiler ready for viewing by next week. In addition to handling a much greater depth and breadth of data than any other personal health record, and giving the person complete control over one's personal information, the PHPro is the only health information technology to offer a Problem Management Guide (PMG). The PMG takes the person's answers to a series of probing questions and automatically:

• Prioritizes the individual's primary life issues in terms of how much problem and emotional distress they cause
  
• Assesses and analyzes a person's coping strategies (how one tries to deal with one's problems)
  
• Shows the connection between one's thoughts/beliefs and one's emotional state
  
• Interprets all this information to foster self-understanding.

After answering a comprehensive set of questions, the person simply double-clicks a button next to the problem area s/he wants to address, and the PMG steps him/her through a series of steps based on a "transactional problem solving" methodology. This process involves helping the person cope with both changeable (controllable) and unchangeable (uncontrollable) situations by reducing one's emotional distress through cognitive restructuring (i.e., modifying one's way of thinking about and reactions to certain things). It also helps the person determine if a problem can be changed, and if it can, it guides the individual through a structured problem solving process that includes solution development, evaluation, implementation, and outcome assessment.

During each step of the coping and problem-solving processes, the person has the option of entering a "gateway" to personalized information and tools from any useful sources. The gateway is a limitless portal designed to grow and evolve continually through massive collaboration. My goal is work with others to expand our information library and tools, so they are tailored precisely to a person's physical and psychological health needs, interests and preferences. This simplifies navigation dramatically and presents materials customized to the person's comprehension and knowledge levels.