April 4, 2014

Whole Person Care  -  the new essential for health and social care IT

• At Health One Global we believe the future of health and social care is Whole Person Care
• This demands a step change in current health and social care IT systems.
• Health One Global is preparing to deliver that step change

Healthcare costs are spiralling everywhere with no corresponding improvement in outcomes.   The highest costs are long term conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, lung disease and kidney disease.  47% of the population in the USA and 40% in the UK have at least one long term condition but these take up 75% and 70% of the health budget. 

To survive, health systems must find a way to manage long term conditions effectively and deliver the best outcomes at the lowest costs.  But despite these overwhelming financial implications healthcare systems around the world are consistently poor at managing long term conditions. 

Patient data are scattered across all the health or social care organisations a person has ever seen.  Aligning around the consumer has transformed many other industries.  It is overdue for health and social care to do the same.

There is now widespread recognition that achieving the best outcomes at the lowest costs for long term conditions will require the widespread adoption of whole person care and personalised medicine.

But personalised medicine requires a step change in current health and social care IT systems. 

Personalised medicine must be underpinned by a life-long Personal Care Record that supports comprehensive personalised care, that has built-in evidence-based decision support, that can share information across all relevant health and social care organizations, and that is shared with patients, through their PCs, mobile devices or TVs. 

There are few health record systems that can meet these new challenges. 

In the UK the Independent Commission into Whole Person Care was published in March 2014 and stated:

At the centre of the Commission’s vision for giving meaningful power to the users of health and care is the rapid development and use of integrated, person-owned electronic health and care records.
Notice the words “….rapid development and use….”

Health One Global has been meeting many of the requirements of personal care records for Special Olympics as the exclusive Special Olympics Healthy Athletes Global Partner for electronic health records for the last 11 years in every US State and in 100 other countries. 

At Health One Global we are extending our already powerful and comprehensive health record system, HealthOne, to become one of the first whole person, Personal Care Record systems to meet the challenges outlined above and to satisfy the requirements of the Independent Commission so that health and social care systems can deliver the best outcomes at the lowest costs for every citizen.

• Our Personal Care Records will enable health and social care providers to achieve the best outcomes at the lowest costs. 
• For health and social care staff our Personal Care Records will save time and effort, ensure they are fully informed and have the latest, relevant, focused decision support at their fingertips. 
• Our Personal Care Records will empower consumers by sharing the same information as their carers including evidence-based personal care pathways and their personal care plans enabling them to be active participants in their own care to achieve their own best possible health and social outcomes.