In this paper, we discuss PD issues and concerns in the context of a national initiative the purpose of which is to provide IT support for the communication and collaboration within a heterogeneous network of patients/citizens and health care professionals. We present the notion of patient empowerment as focus of ongoing research in the research program Health Care IT along with three empirical case studies under way. We conclude by highlighting the context-specific challenges development of new IT services in the health care sector poses and relate these challenges to existing PD concepts and approaches.