Positive Technology for Enhancing the Patient Engagement Experiences

New technologies are fundamental resources to fostering patient engagement in clinical and organizational settings. Not only can they allow clinicians to provide care services and support the diagnosis process, but they can also be used to understand patients’ care experience and to promote patients’ engagement in their own care management. In this sense, the Positive Technology paradigm constitutes a scientific and applied approach to the use of new technologies to structure, augment, or replace personal experience. Indeed, using new technologies allows; (1) the generation /promotion of positive emotions (Hedonic Technologies); (2) support in the achieving of positive and self-actualizing experiences (Eudaimonic Technologies); and (3) the promotion of connectedness and social integration, as a dynamic and controllable aspect of well-being (Social/Interpersonal Technologies). This chapter provides examples of how positive technologies can be used in healthcare settings to improve patients’ engagement in their healthcare.