Fostering Bilateral Patient-Clinician Engagement in Active Self-Tracking of Subjective Experience

In this position paper we describe select aspects of our experience with health-related self-tracking, the data generated, and processes surrounding those. In particular we focus on how bilateral patient-clinician engagement may be fostered by the combination of technology and method. We exemplify with a case study where a PTSD-suffering veteran has been selftracking a specific symptom precursor.

The availability of high-resolution self-tracking data on the occurrences of even a single symptom created new opportunities in the therapeutic process for identifying underlying triggers of symptoms. The patient was highly engaged in self-tracking and sharing the collected data. We suggest a key reason was the collaborative effort in defining the data collection protocol and discussion of the data.

The therapist also engaged highly in the selftracking data, as it supported the existing therapeutic process in reaching insights otherwise unobtainable.