A Health Virtual Community Model: A Bottom Up Approach

摘要

This paper presents a model for Health Virtual Communities (Health VCs) based on a case study of a Health VC for chronic disease management designed for rural and disadvantaged communities in a developing country. It provides an analysis of the components needed in the Health VC and the necessity of a flexible design. The model provides a list of characteristics that a Health VC design should have in order for it to provide a viable, value-added experience to users who have heterogeneous capacities in terms of access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). It establishes a first attempt towards a framework for a Global Health VC analysis and design.