Health Care Communication Technology and Its Promise of Patient Empowerment: Unpacking Patient Empowerment through Patients' Identity Construction

Abstract

Healthcare communication technology promises to empower patients and improve communication with their health care professionals. This chapter critically analyzes these claims based on an empirical study in the Netherlands. It concludes that, rather than providing a straightforward way to empower patients, technology blurs identities while at the same time constraining the scope of patients to undertake their own identity work.