This project is intended to address the current needs of information technology and research ways to improve on value and performance through economic impacts, technology interaction, and health monitoring approaches with deployment of technology as a utility.
This project will focus on home health monitoring functions, determine and describe health monitoring and the seamless integration, and detail a definition of required management utilities to include wireless, media, environmental, and security. Research objectives include the following:
- Development of a public shareware database to manage and track health information including but not necessarily limited to cholesterol, glucose, blood pressure, body mass index and weight, nutritional assessment and will be required to feed into standard application suites for presentation and interpretation.
- Posture solutions for inclusion onto comprehensive information technology servers to enhance health monitoring functions by expanding the availability of technology beyond traditional methods and offering solutions in the form of utilities.
The results of this project are intended to demonstrate that better technology solutions for improved health monitoring functions need to be leveraged in a cost efficient approach and remains as the prominent driving force to provide effective solutions that are both practical and affordable. The ability to bring configured networks, tracking of routine health status indicators, and wireless utilities adds a dimension of monitoring intelligence that most consumers have never had in the past.
Part I: Identification and Significance of the Innovation
With some 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 heading toward retirement, emerging technologies likely will help care for this aging baby-boomer generation. Technology is already being used to help keep tens of millions of older people in assisted living situations a lot safer. The National Association for Home Care in Washington, D.C., conducted several clinical trials of distance monitoring of blood glucose levels by computer and found improved outcomes in diabetes care.
[1] Similarly, trials of distance monitoring of blood pressures showed enhanced efficiency. Focus of this project will target the development of a shareware database management system to integrate devices for glucose, cholesterol, blood pressure and heart rate already available over the counter at most distribution centers and pharmacies. Consideration will be to evaluate the respective management of information strategies, transfer and archiving of data for longitudinal presentation and interpretation.
As long as consumers view technology as a necessity, we must all search for ways to support technology devices proliferating here, there, everywhere. Many consumers no longer ask if they should smart wire their homes but are left with what to do with it after its done. Yet, no home or office today has been able to advise consumers on all the various pieces that make up the technology enterprise.
[2] Because technology is quickly becoming a specialty, it is vitally important that criteria standards are in place for the seamless integration of future technologies. Monitoring health care functions and the targeted solutions need to be carefully crafted with the ability to be postured as a utility, and that every consumer can take charge and break away from the status quo with regards to proliferation of technology. To do this a community-wide network configured in a ‘server’ environment to centrally support health monitoring is proposed. Standardization is equally paramount to illustrate that such a server can be configured in ways to accommodate many of the current management functions and technologies, ensure security, disaster recovery, wired and wireless protocols, bandwidth management and truly bring intelligence for consumers and into the mainstream market.
Accordingly, there is no other choice but to evaluate the best and carefully crafted solutions for consumers. While not every consumers needs to have a computer, technology can help provide hidden functions for the passive consumer. Clearly, today both active and passive consumers are left with finding their own way of managing all the proliferation of health monitoring technology.
The time to act is clearly now. The intelligent home is perched on the edge of rapid growth, in much the same place personal computers were before they took off and became common consumer purchases. [3,4,5] What needs to be in place to drive that serious growth? Most obvious are mass-market prices that bring the technology within the range of more homeowners. Those prices will be driven by both standardized, secured server appliances and multiple uses of the technology to make the purchase more compelling. For instance, a single system that supports home health monitoring. security, entertainment and computer connectivity is naturally far more appealing to the cost-conscious mid-tier buyer than separate systems for all three functions.
We are in a period of transition that yearns to be molded into a period of progress. Tools need to move beyond pilot programs that allow self monitoring and make the most sense when impacting the level of cost for care requiring nurse or physician attention, creating opportunities for intervention, and empowering people to take ownership of their health status. This project will bring the critical mass of experience that makes adopting these tools a strategic necessity – the new home utility.
Part 2: Objectives
Medical devices, products and technologies are converging to revolutionize home- and self-care health systems in the United States, making it possible for people to play a greater role in maintaining their own health. These systems are geared toward a prevention-oriented, consumer-driven model for health care that includes innovations such as "smart devices" that can "think" for themselves, customized wearable devices, and wireless Internet-linked systems--all expected to deliver convenient, user-friendly, intelligent health care in the home.
For consumers, this could mean convenience in time and travel and reduced health-care costs, and--it is hoped--result in home-care systems that teach people to monitor themselves with gizmos that give timely warnings of illness so that they can turn to their physicians early--when intervention will do the most good. For doctors, it could mean more efficient--and effective--health care driven by patients who take greater responsibility for their own health.
OBJECTIVE 1: is to develop a state-of-the-art shareware database to manage and track all home health information including but not necessarily limited to cholesterol, glucose, blood pressure, body mass index and weight, nutritional assessment and will be required to feed into standard application suites for presentation and interpretation.
Part 3: RESEARCH PLAN
Inititial inquiry seems to illustrate there is no one manufacturer that provides home health monitoring technologies to track Glucose, Blood Pressure and Heart Rate, and Cholesterol in a single comprehensive integrated system. [6] In order to evaluate the integration features of the various monitors from different manufacturers, it is expected that these monitors will need to be acquired for the purpose of developing interfaces for the passing of data read-outs to a centralized workstation or server. Some monitors may have integration features with other proprietary knowledge –based systems. The value of any existing reporting and interpretation functions will need to be described and documented with regards to integration with other home monitors (ie. Glucose with Cholesterol, Blood Pressure, and Heart Rate).
The best model for monitoring glucose, cholesterol, and blood pressure is the expected outcome of this evaluation. Factored into the evaluation criteria will be cost of each monitor, robust functions, ease of integration, durability and cost for supplies, and other quality assurance requirements that address security, integrity of data read-out and accuracy, Each device will be evaluated for compliance with data transfer functions in both a wired and wireless mode.
Testing an integrated system for glucose, cholesterol, and blood pressure is requred. It is anticipated that realistic imaginary data can suffice for the testing and development of interfaces for this model without having to rely on real client or patient data. All devices will be required to capture no less than 5 read-outs with a maximum of 200. Data is to be transferred to a centralized database and review for accuracy, integrity, and duplicate data.
Migration to whole home health integration and monitoring will occur gradually in three stages. The technology delivery model of the future is envisioned to be predominantly home based in which home health monitoring technologies are provided in a manner that is convenient for the consumer --regardless of location within the home.
REFERENCES
[1] “Advanced Technologies to Lower Health Care Costs and Improve Quality”, Authored by Erica Drazen, ScD and Keith MacDonald, Massachusettes Technology Collaborative, October 2003 http://www.fcg.com/health-plans/news.asp
[2] “Smart Home Networks: The Fight for Control” ,In-Stat, (Report # IN020244RC), 2002. http://www.instat.com/
[3] “The Coming Explosion of Fiber to the Home”, by Derek Johnson, Chairman of the Communications and Education Committee - Fiber to the Home Council, 9/15/2003
[4] “Home Net Installation Market Big Business: Call in the Pros” by Toni Kistner, Network World, August 26,2002.
[5] “Digital Domicile 2003: Home Networking Goes Hollywood” by In-Stat, (Report # IN0301096RC), 2002. http://www.instat.com/
[6] “Table of Home Health Monitors, Manufacturers with Integration Features” by Charles Cortez, Currently in Development at Su CASA Communications, April 17, 2005.
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