MyHealth

Inspiration

We work with healthcare providers towards reaping benefit from smart devices right from strategy to its implementation. While working with several healthcare providers, we observed that they are mostly focused on EMR/EHR and patient health information management. On the other side of spectrum, there are lot of vendors who are providing generic solutions for wellness.

This is resulting in abundance of digital solutions however most of them are not fulfilling the need to having a healthy life. With myHealth we plan to take a holistic view of health and work with healthcare provider towards providing a unified view of people's health right from illness to wellness.

Another market driver for this particular solution is towards penalty on patient readmission. With mobile becoming a virtual companion of life, we believe this solution as first step towards better quality of life by bringing ecosystem players including healthcare provider, family members, domain experts together under a single umbrella of myHealth.

How it works

Some of fundamental thoughts that we are trying to address include:

Peronsalization and Context awareness is key in today's work of content, data and applications. There is lot of opportunity published in terms of content, applications so in today's its important to provide access to what is relevant for user rather than serving generic content. Here's some key aspects considered in solution:

User interface is based on age group of user. Fonts are big and specific instructions are there in user interface designed for elderly where as same application if someone starts in younger age group the user interface is verbose with medium size fonts.
Application serves content based on user's health persona. It shows digital articles which are relevant to self or near and dear ones. So a 60 year old will get more content right from screening requirements which is relevant to his/hear health condition.
Context Awareness - Pill reminders, procedures are aware about your location, time and activity you are performing so instead of reminding you of taking pill, user can configure it to remind when user is at home.
Each individual has their own definition of healthy life: A 60 year old might want to different health goals compared to that of a 25 years old professional. Personalization makes it possible for all age groups to achieve their goals under one platform.
Breaking Stereotype roles: Rather than attributing user with predefined roles like physician, patient, care provider, In this application we intent to consider user as persona playing multiple roles together. So a physician can also have his or her health profile and use this application as a step towards better health like any other user.

Healthcare Providers are going to play a additional role of digital health adviser for staying healthy. Although with digital information becoming available Patients are getting empowered however from a trust perspective, people do rely on their physician as a authority. Solutions like symptom checker are assisting in this journey but we feel that technology has a long way to go before we can start relying completely for diagnosis. Considering this fact, myHealth intends to be a solution jointly evolved with healthcare provider rather than off the shelf stand along solution.

It enables user to stay connected with their care circle which includes physicians, PCP as well as family members.
White-Board collaboration enables real-time consultation with physicians.

Keeping it simple and actionable :

A simple Dashboard enables the user to track his/her daily as well as overall health score enabling to keep track of personal health progress.
Alerts and reminders make sure all pills are consumed and all instructions by the care provider are followed.
If tells user a comprehensive score of health and gamify it, this will motivate him or her towards keeping a healthy score.

Challenges I ran into

One of primary challenge we ran into is to understand the various reasons of readmission. With the help of our healthcare provider partners and available sources in public domain, here's the summary of causes for readmission.

Patient truly does not understand the seriousness of their illness
Don’t understand their discharge instructions
Don’t want to admit they have trouble taking care of themselves at home
Are not able to get their medication
Don’t understand the importance of taking their medication/s as directed
Don’t understand which medications to take and when
Not able to set a follow-up appointment to see their PCP
Confused with how they are feeling during recovery therefore they stop following their treatment plan
Don’t feel well when taking their medication/s so they stop
Family caregivers are not knowledgeable enough to provide proper care

Keeping it simple and meaningful : Its an ongoing challenge of keeping solution simple and avoiding overcrowded information and features. We have worked on several cutting edge technologies including deep learning, beacons, augmented reality, smart watches, LBS, GIS etc. from technology side. Coming from technology background, we were always excited about possibilities of bringing a positive health outcome using technology. Challenge that we faced is to really say no to technologies which are not yet ready and identify meaningful use case for ready to use technologies.