SmartHealth @ Home Blog

Ms. Madeline Vann writes in her article on EverydayHealth – “To be completely healthy, you must take care of not only your physical health, but your emotional health, too. If one is neglected, the other will suffer.”

Many other scientific studies, for a long time, have emphasized the same important fact.

Then why is it that, even today, most of the Internet services focus mainly on physical health indicators such as blood pressure and weight ? Won’t it be better to have a solution that combines tools to improve both emotional health and physical well-being under a single umbrella? Better yet, the same solution can also include nutritional diary so that one can evaluate the effect of personal food intake and understand that impact too ?

Let us also look at the demographic shift around the world. The senior population is rapidly growing and more seniors are staying alone. In US alone, 40 million boomers retired last year. This is a world-wide phenomenon. If emotional health is important for all, it is critically essential for the independently living seniors.

Therefore, Nclaves provides a single environment that combines a number of tools and technologies to measure, monitor and improve emotional health as well as physical well-being. It takes a family-wide approach to improve total health so that members can engage and assist each other as and when necessary. Read more…

There is undoubtedly more investment and more technology innovation on the patient-care side than keeping people healthy. In fact, just a few weeks ago, we were in discussion with a VC with MBA from a well-known east coast school. Since our Internet service, Nclaves, is aimed at better control of personal health at home, the discussion revolved around personal health devices to be used at home and how they reduce cost, improve productivity and so forth.

Her immediate reaction was, “I don’t use anything like that myself. I don’t know anyone at my age who does that regularly either. There is no business here”.

We were speechless, to say the least. We asked her why she doesn’t use any such devices to keep an eye on her own health although she does use similar devices in her car to keep it healthy – to make sure there is enough engine oil, enough gas in the tank and so forth. That sort of clicked in her mind, but not enough to get the money flowing.

VC’s will generally say they want to invest in a vicodin. To us, the lack of recognition that we indeed need technologies and solutions to routinely monitor our own health is in itself a triple-vicodin of a problem, let alone a simple vicodin.

Today’s HealthCare language seems to revolve mostly around a patient. Ask 10 people what they think of the term “care” in the context of a person, and 8 of them will immediately think of a “patient”. To care for a person is most often thought of as patient-care.

On the other hand, ask the same people what they think of “care” in the context of say, a car. They will talk about how they keep the oil at the correct level, keep the tire pressure current and perhaps how they keep the interiors clean and nice. To care of a car is most often thought of as keeping the car “healthy”.

It is sad that the term car-care conjures up an image of keeping a care well, ahead of something going wrong, while the term person-care is mostly interpreted to mean patient care, something to be done after a person has had some medical situation.

It seams that the language of HealthCare is driven mostly from the medical point of view – the patients, the doctors, the hospitals. That would be more akin to the car-related language being driven from a garage’s point of view. Is that right ? Shouldn’t the language for a person’s health be centered on a healthy person, just as the language for a car’s health is centered on the car itself, not its garage ?

Nclaves provides an environment to monitor and improve health and wellness at home on a family-wide basis so that family members can reduce cost of care and “be healthy”.

A person’s own sense of safety and security, particularly when living alone, has direct impact on the person’s health. According to a survey by the Australian Beureau of Statistics, “Feeling unsafe is a significant issue for many people and affects individual and community mental health and wellbeing”. As the aging population continues to grow around the world and the global economy drives the family members to disperse, we need to find ways to improve safety and security from a distance. It is true that services such as 911 are available in developed countries but that is not the case in many places. Family members must rely on each other to provide the sense of safety among themselves.

The Digital Home technologies can provide dispersed family members to observe and perhaps control digital appliances remotely. For example, security lights or window blinds in an elder’s home can be observed remotely by multiple family members. When an unexpected event occurs, an automatic alert can be generated and sent out to a predetermined list of individuals. They can take additional steps as necessary.

Recently, a story of an US army personnel appeared in a newspaper. While on duty in Iraq, he regularly communicated with his mom over the Internet. One day she did not go-online as expected and therefore he called the neighbors. The neighbors went to the mom’s home and knocked on her door. They found she needed some medical help and then took the necessary steps.

This is just one example. Of course, there are services such as LifeAlert(r). Digital home technologies, combined with the Internet and/or mobile phones, can take the intra-family support structure to the next level. It will help not only the elders and their family members but also the society in general.

There is a significant movement towards monitoring health at home. A number of devices, technologies and standards are in place so that individuals can conveniently monitor different health parameters at home.

Will people actually use these devices regularly ?

There needs to be a sense of engagement if we want these devices to be a part of the routine life (daily, weekly, — whatever). They must not come across as a drudgery that “has to be taken care of”. For example, consider simple things like flossing the teeth. Even though we know it is necessary and the dentists keep telling us to do so, many will skip it because it is a drudgery. Then think of health measurements like weight and blood pressure. Will we track them regularly ? Unless a person is already a patient and therefore has to take these measurements, it is quite possible that we will more often skip it than not.

Health monitoring at home needs to be simple, engaging and a part of daily life for it to be truly useful. What can we do to make it a regular habit ? Nclaves’ SmartHealth@Home approach relies on the loving relationships among family members to cajole each other and make health tracking a routine habit.

There is a strong concern that health applications are not resulting in healthier behavior. There are many mobile health apps (8000+) but the jury is still out whether these many applications have really made much of a difference.

Based on the surveys and one-on-one meetings we have had related to our Nclaves Internet service, we have learned that even if the application is really useful and friendly, users do not use it unless it becomes part and parcel of their daily life, for one reason or another. They would like a collection of their health information available to them at the push of a button. Today we have one application to monitor glucose level, another to monitor weight and yet another website to go to for nutritional information. That is a hassle and a big reason for their disengagement.

Another point is perhaps a little controversial yet important to note. Today, almost all the health related discussions and applications appear to gravitate towards a “patient”. That is, most users engage in observing, monitoring, and fixing their health after the fact. It is like watching a bank account after receiving an account overdrawn notice. Services like Mint (mint.com) are aimed at helping users to avoid unhappy consequences regarding money matters. We need a “Mint” for health.

If we respond to these needs – ex-ante (before the fact), routine, push-of-a-button style engagement with a variety of health information in one secure place – then it is a step in the right direction. Based on the user feedback, Nclaves is taking that step with its SmartHealth @ Home approach.

The term MedicalHome has been used a lot. The emphasis is on patient-centric technologies that are (or can be) installed in the home. However, not everyone is a patient. You can be perfectly healthy and yet have many health-related technologies at home – for example, bluetooth enabled personal health devices, home environment detectors such as carbon monoxide alarms and so on. For such homes, where the emphasis is on health, not patient, what should we call it ? HealthyHome ? HealthfulHome ? HealthwiseHome ?

Words matter. “Medical” implies a patient. If the health care battle is shifting more towards preventive health maintenance then the term should emphasize Health rather than Medical. What do you think ? Do you agree ?

Nclaves takes a health-centric approach to tackle the rising cost of health care. That is perhaps a smarter approach to reduce cost, improve quality of life and you can do that in the convenience of your own home.

There are many excellent articles that explain the impact of emotional health on the overall health. It says “… there’s now solid science behind the correlation of emotional experience and a host of diseases and health conditions, from heart disease and depression to obesity and chronic pain“.

Clearly, emotional health is an integral part of the overall human health and wellness.

When family members disperse for one reason or another, the geographical distances make it difficult for them to maintain and strengthen relationship bonds. That in turn affects emotional health, particularly for the independent seniors. That, according to the article above, will have strong impact on “heart disease, depression and obesity”.

Although there are many personal health devices to measure various physical health parameters, such as blood pressure, the quantification of emotional health remains illusive. If we cannot quantify, it is that much more difficult to monitor. That puts us between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, we know emotional health does impact overall health but on the other, we don’t have clear means to quantify.

One solution for this dilemma would be to have tools that help family members engage with each other routinely and then make those tools an integral part of the total health at home solution. That is what Nclaves attempts to do. It views tools such as audio/video chat and family tree as an integral part of health and well-being. These tools are as much a part of the total health @ home solution as the tools to measure and monitor weight and blood pressure.

Health in the holistic sense must include emotional health as well as physical health. A number of devices are being announced to measure physical health parameters such as weight and blood-pressure. However, managing emotional health remains more of an art than science. The classic question, “if you cannot measure it, how can you manage it” aptly explains the difficulty of managing and improving emotional health. This is a particularly important issue to remember when addressing independent living in America.

We also have to think of the effect of Home environment on health. For example, Carbon Monoxide and Radon gases in a home are dangerous. Lack of personal safety and security can create stressful environment, particularly for those living alone at home.

Thus, a comprehensive solution for improving Health @ Home has to recognize that Health is not just physical health and that Home environment is an equally important aspect too. We have to think of Health @ Home outside-the-box and only then we will be able to build comprehensive solutions. Nclaves‘ SmartHealth @ Home is one such solution.

Caring among family members at home is a special challenge for families. This year, the baby-boomer wave will add 40 million to the senior population, 72 million by 2030. During that same time, the number of family care-givers will increase just by 2 million. From now till 2030, The senior population will increase by many folds as compared to the younger care-giver generation. A broader view of Care-at-home is essential to
address the special challenge faced by millions of the families.

Let us look at Care-at-Home in a broader sense. It includes sick-care as well as healthy-care. We use the word Care in a broad sense, not just patient-care. In that sense, it needs both professionals and the family. They complement each other, but their approaches are different.

The professional industry approaches Care mainly as “patient” care whereas the family looks at the senior as a loved-one first and then a patient. For the family, healthy-care is an important part of Care. It has deeper emotional significance, generally covers a longer time period in life and associated with “fun” and “cheer”, not sickness. Because of such differences, the family solution has to be designed differently, positioned differently so that it is perceived differently.

SmartCare is a comprehensive approach to care-at-home among family members.