KNOWLEDGEBUTTONS IN HEALTH SYSTEMS

Infobutton is an important concept from long time in use and much has been done with respect to its standardization and context supplementation. The concept is to create contextual links to information resources from within the information systems usually health information systems. The need which has been realized by the authors of this paper is the augmentation of Infobuttons from the level of only information links to the level of knowledge links. The authors proposed the concept of knowledge links named as "Knowledgebuttons" which complements the concept Infobuttons. It adds further capabilities of getting knowledge to the users instead of just connectivity to information resources. The better representation of the information retrieved with Infobuttons is the first and foundation step to achieve the goal of getting knowledge. This paper discusses about the concept and applicability of Knowledgebuttons in health information systems. It is envisioned that this concept will add to the overall quality of patient care. Both physicians and patients can benefit from this technique as per their needs. Physicians can help in patient diagnosis and treatment critical decisions while patients can educate them to know more about their health conditions by studying the right knowledge at right time. Knowledgebuttons are able to create a true learning environment for the users while using health information systems.