It is important to clearly understand that there is a true need and market for this Initiative. It is just not an idea that is looking for a problem.  There is a real crisis in Healthcare and Whole Health Care in cost, capability, and availability. Many of the elements that make up this Initiative already exist (or are emerging) and are helping people today. The System leverages and combines these elements to provide better and more comprehensive solution to provide Whole Healthcare for more people in all stages of their lives.

 

What is the Problem that needs to be Solved?

 

There are many challenges facing Healthcare in the US, and worldwide. This is not a single country issue.

• Medical costs are rising, Doctors can’t afford Medicare patients, there are more individuals with insurance, and we have an aging (more dependent) population

• There is, and will continue to be, a shortage of highly skilled medical professionals

• There are many people that cannot (or do not have) access the medical resources and the care they need

• There is, and will continue to be, increases in need for short and long term assisted care

• There is a lack of understanding/focus that a Patient’s “Basic Needs” extend beyond Basic Healthcare, which needs to be considered in any “Whole Health” offering

• There is a lack of at-home family caregivers or remote monitoring for at-home patient care and recovery

• There are a lot of new and emerging technologies that can improve medical and care capabilities and reduce costs, unfortunately… many are being implemented on a piecemeal approach, which is costly for development, integration, operation and support

 

Healthcare is Not Affordable

 

There are many individuals on the edge of their budgets and can’t afford anything other than emergencies (if that). Even if you are not on the edge, many medical issues and personal service needs can have a large impact on your life, and will be skipped due to availability or cost. People need care, and many of the “Traditional Family Systems” that used to (had to) take care of family members are gone, for a variety of reasons.

 

For Medical Providers, costs for new treatments, equipment, medical liability insurance, regulation, mandatory treatment for people without insurance, and reduced government payments for services have raised costs. For individuals, even with insurance, subsidies, high deductibles, and high maximum cost caps, this doesn’t solve the problem if you can’t pay or get the services.  Many of the highest need locations and populations are not cost affective to support.  It just isn’t affordable or available.

 

The idea behind this Initiative is to make Healthcare more available and affordable, using a Market Driven Approach to actually reduce the cost of Healthcare and Whole Healthcare to make it more affordable for everyone.

• There needs to be tools and training to empower and support Individuals and Groups to help them support individuals as part of a Healthcare Support System

• There needs to be low cost home-based tools, devices,  and services to allow individuals  to “safely” and “independently” stay in their homes as much and as long as possible (elderly as well as younger individuals that might need home assistance due to an injury or disability)

• There needs to be ways of monitoring people to catch issues early, before they get worse or cause other problems

• There needs to be cost effective ways to create new devices and services to support Whole Healthcare

• There needs to be cost effective ways of improving and expanding services to more individuals and more places

 

Healthcare is not available where and when it is needed

 

Healthcare needs to be expanded to where it is needed, as well as support emergency situations. The System supports the expansion of Healthcare to more places and people using technology as well as trained Medical Assistants to provide some the coverage, with backup Telemedicine, Remote Presence, and Medical Professional Review capabilities.

• Low cost Home and Clinical devices (medical, security, and control) that can reach more areas and people

• Low-cost “plug and play” mobile, emergency, and brick and mortar Facilities and Clinics

• Tools and APPs to extended use of Telemedicine (Rural Clinics, Emergency First Aid, Mobile and Storefront Clinics, Humanitarian and Disaster Relief, “House Calls”, 24 hour “Ask-a-Nurse”)

• Incorporation of Healthcare into Retirement, Assisted Living, and Nursing Facilities

• Advanced Telemedicine capable First Aid Kits that can be deployed in more Public and Private venues

 

The Main Focus is on Current Patient Issues and not Whole Health and Wellness

 

An individual’s health is not based on the current medical conditions they may have at a given time. Some Preventive Care and Lifestyle initiatives are a great 1^st step, but not a complete solution.

• There need to be Information Services available to better help individuals and providers to identify issues that may need to be further looked at (including things that might be issues or common changes depending on the current situations in their life)

• There need to be devices that can help monitor an individual and determine if there are any areas of concern

• There needs to be a way for personal service providers to be able to look for and identify any issues that might need further attention

• There needs to be baselines and the latest information available about any regional issues that could identify any potential issues

• There needs to be more correlation with genetics and family history to help identify things to look for

 

There are shortages of Doctors and other Highly-Trained Health Professionals

 

There are and will be shortages of highly-trained medical professionals, especially in underserved areas, or areas where the economics just can’t support it. Technology has already started to be incorporated into providing patients with better care using lower skilled providers. This is a good 1^st step, but there are significant improvements that can and need to be made in this area.

• There needs to be low-cost technologies to be able to assist lower skilled providers with the ability to safely and comprehensively test and collect information about a patient to help identify potential issues

• There needs to be low-cost technologies to be able to expand these capabilities into more areas to serve more individuals

 

There is a lack of sharing data across providers (and from individuals own devices)

 

Too often, people will see different Doctors and other providers, and the data collected by each will not be available to the next individual, or due to time constraints, not be able to be as thoroughly reviewed.

• There needs to be a protected capability where medical data (from a provider, in-home monitoring, and patient questionnaires) can be shared

• There needs to be a common simple to read (and drilldown as needed) report that allows a Doctor or Other Provider to know of any historical or current issues that should be known during an examination or treatment

 

There is a lack of baseline medical data for patients

 

Technology can be used to take a wide variety of image, sound, and other data baselines about individuals that are not being taken, stored, and/or compared for changes.

• There needs to be the capability to do more visual, audio, and other data baselines on individuals

• There needs to be technologies that can analyze baselines for possible areas of interest, as well as compare baselines for any changes of interest

• There needs to be simple to use tools to view baseline issues and time lapse changes

 

There is a lack of safeguards, services, and devices to enable people to be independent

 

Living alone can be dangerous if something happens, take care of you if you are sick or injured, and there is a lack of someone to monitor you for things you might not notice or think are a big deal. As we age, we lose certain capabilities to be able to live as independently as we may wish, even if there is someone else there. At any time we can become sick, injured, or develop a disability that affects our ability to be independent.

 

There are many different piecemeal solutions evolving that allow us to live more independently, that could greatly benefit from being integrated.

• There needs to be low cost technology to help us stay safe and protected

• There needs to be technology to be able to provide a vast array of goods and services to our residences

• There needs to be emergency monitoring and support as needed

 

New and Emerging Technologies are not being Used or Leveraged Off

 

This is an issue for devices and technology that exist today, as well as the development of new emerging devices and technologies. There are many devices and technologies that exist today that are not being used or (used as effectively) as they could be. There are a lot of devices and technologies that are being developed that do not talk to each other, are difficult to integrate and support in a system, have a high cost of ownership, and reinvent the wheel for reduced capability common functions that they should be leveraging off of.

• There needs to be integration of intelligent knowledge based information systems with devices and services to support a wide array of Whole Healthcare Services

• There needs to be common features, interfaces, and standards that allow APPs, devices, and data to be plug-and-play  and interoperate (as well as add and upgrade)

• There needs to be a lower the total cost of ownership

• There needs to be simple to use interfaces with demo and training capabilities to show

• There needs to be easy-to-use established configurations (Systems-in-a-Box) to support different end-users that they can quickly install and use for better adoption

• There needs to be self and remote monitoring and support of devices

 

There is a lack of safeguards and tools to reduce errors

 

There are too many errors in the medical and personal services areas which is costly in time, monetary costs, and health.  <Read more on Error Reduction>

• There needs to be safeguards that can better guide providers, automatically collect data, perform sanity checks on data, analyze data, and provide input for potential issues

• There needs to be better comprehensive training and certification for medical assistants for specific areas

• There needs to be better ways of scheduling tasks and escalations as needed

 

There are Communication and Cultural Gaps between Providers and Recipients

 

Communication is often difficult between people with different languages and cultures that can greatly affect a person’s care and treatment. With remote presence and telemedicine, providers can be located anywhere in the world (especially in emergencies).

• There needs to be technology to support Native Language, Translation, Cultural, and Belief Systems are critical to provide proper care

• There needs to be technology that can expand a person’s knowledge to take regional differences and conditions into effect

 

There is a lack of Audit Capabilities for Actions and Events

 

There is a lack of Audit capabilities in today’s systems leading to errors, lack of ability to track down potential errors, and a loss of potential benefits in process improvements.

• There needs to be simple event logging for events with tools to perform analysis on the events to identify process improvement, group/individual training needs, problems, and termination/bonuses.

 

There is a lack of Information required to help “At Risk” Individuals

 

We will all probably experience being “At Risk” at one or more times of our lives. “At Risk” basically means that we are at a higher risk than other people based on our situation and/or an event occurred. This could be a child, becoming elderly, living alone, having a disability, or having a temporary illness or injury. In these cases we need a little extra help and/or monitoring

• There needs to be a way to check on (and provide services to) Shut-ins or people with limited access outside their homes

• There needs to be a way to identify and support “At Risk” Individuals that would be affected in a Disaster or Outage Situation

• There needs to be a better way of identifying and providing any special instructions about individuals that are injured or otherwise able to intelligently communicate

• There needs to be a way to provide a passive safety net to make sure people are OK

 

These are just a few of the many issues that are challenging the ability to provide people with the care that they need. There needs to be affordable Healthcare, a larger view of providing Whole Healthcare, and it all needs to be accessible to more people (rich or poor) in all stages of their lives.

 

Through existing and emerging commercially available technologies and products…This can be done, and bring Whole Healthcare with better capabilities, to a larger segment of the population at lower costs.