Difference between revisions of "Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System - CHESS"

Revision as of 18:17, 7 September 2013

Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS) is a computer-based system of integrated services designed to help patients suffering from a life-threatening disease such as breast cancer, HIV infection, heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, or alcoholism [1,2]. It provides information, referral to service providers, helps in making tough decisions and provides network with the expert and those who are facing the same concern [3]. “It is designed to improve access to health and human services for people who would otherwise face psychological, social, economic or geographic barriers to receiving services. [3]” It was designed to help them improve their health through education at home via personal computer. This support system was developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. An AHRQ study of HIV patients who used CHESS showed that they had fewer hospitalizations and a higher quality of life than patients who received only standard medical treatment.

Although CHESS was primarily a support system developed to improve life quality of patients suffering from life-threatening diseases, other CHESS-like applications such as Stomp Out Smokes (SOS) have been proven to stimulate a desire to quit smoking of over 70% of users participant of interactive cessions. In contrast to CHESS targeting adults, SOS focussed on adolescent health behavior change [4].

One of the problems with CHESS is that each component of the system stands individually, which means that only one tool can be used at a time. All patients receive the same information, so there is no way to individualize the information received. Information entered by the user cannot be shared with other parts of the system [5].

Reference

1. Gustafson DH, Hawkins R, Boberg E, et al. Impact of a patient-centered, computer-based health information/support system. Am J Prev Med 1999; 16(1):1-9.

2. https://chess.wisc.edu/chess/home/home.aspx

3. Nolte E, Mckee M. Caring for People with Chronic Conditions: A Health System Perspective.

4. Patten A.C, Rock E., Meis T. Frequency and Type of Use of a Home-Based, Internet Intervention for Adolescent Smoking Cessation. J Adolesc Health.2007 November ;41(5): 437–443. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=2063436&blobtype=pdf

5. Susan W. McRoy, Alfredo Liu-Perez, Syed S. Ali. Interactive Computerized Health Care Education. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 1998 Jul–Aug; 5(4): 347–356.