The desktop, or the top of the desk? The relative usefulness of household features for personal health information management.

Sixty percent of the US population manages at least one chronic illness. For these patients, personal health information management (PHIM) is an integral part of daily life, and largely occurs within the home. However, the way in which the home supports PHIM has not been systematically investigated.

Home is where the head is: a distributed cognition account of personal health information management in the home among those with chronic illness.

Managing chronic illness requires personal health information management (PHIM) to be performed by lay individuals. Paramount to understanding the PHIM process is understanding the sociotechnical system in which it frequently occurs: the home environment. We combined distributed cognition theory and the patient work system model to investigate how characteristics of the home interact with the cognitive work of PHIM.