A journey from Cure to Care- Wellness management for healthy lifestyle: Diabetes management a case study

Smart ubiquitous computing has a vital role to avoid and indicate the preventable lifestyle-based chronic diseases. It is focusing to adopt a healthy lifestyle by converging science and technology in this digital world for improving health and quality of life. From the last decade, the development of wellness applications has supported personalization and self-quantification. These applications facilitate the users through activity tracking and monitoring, based on the raw sensory data to adopt healthy behavior. The challenge of behavior change is not only to indicate the issues but also provides step-by-step coaching and guidance at real time. The realization of behavior change theories through digital technology has revolutionized the lifestyle change in a systematic and measurable manner. We have proposed a methodology to understand the behavior for generating just-in-time intervention for adopting a healthy lifestyle. Wellness platform based behavior analysis is performed using unbiased life-log and questionnaire for qualitative assessment of behavior. Behavior stage wise intervention is provided to adapt behavior for enhancing the quality of life and boost the socio-economic conditions. Personalized education is provided to understand the importance of healthy behavior and motivate the users, whereas just-in-time context-based recommendations have supported the stage-wise adaptation of unhealthy behavior. These capabilities require status evaluation of the activities and an efficient way to portray the comprehensive index of lifestyle habits. The real focus is to correlate the primarily linked habits in appropriate proportion through healthy behavior index (HBI) for personalized wellness support services. The healthy behavior index and behavior change theories through smart technologies

Holistic health: Predicting our data future (from inter-operability among systems to co-operability among people)

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Assessing the structures and domains of wellness models: A systematic review

Objective: This study systematically identifies different wellness domains, explores whether we are reaching any consensus, and presents an archetype of a wellness model. Methods: Studies were selected for review if they proposed a model for assessing individuals’ wellness, the model was generic (i.e., non-context or disease-specific), designed for adults and included at least physical, psychological and social domains. Furthermore, the study needed to be peer-reviewed with a full-text available in English. Based on this, 44 models were identified and their domains were extracted and grouped using thematic analysis, and placed under themes that were created using quantitative methods. Publication year and formed groupings were used to examine the evolution of models. Median, mode, and percentages were used to form the archetype. Results: The investigated models included 379 unique domains that could be clustered into 70 groups and under 14 themes. While the numbers of published wellness models increased, no consensus on the domains was reached. The majority of the models were presented at one level with five domains. Conclusions: Incorporating wellness into everyday practice requires comparable measures to evaluate and benchmark outcomes. Hence, we need to reach a mutual understanding on the structure and domains of wellness

Personal health records and personal health record systems: a report recommendation from the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics

President Bush and Secretary Leavitt have put forward a vision that, in the Secretary\ue2\u20ac\u2122s words, \ue2\u20ac\u153would create a personal health record that patients, doctors and other health care providers could securely access through the Internet no matter where a patient is seeking medical care.\ue2\u20ac? The National Health Information Infrastructure Workgroup of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS) held six hearings on personal health records (PHRs) and PHR systems in 2002-2005. On the basis of those hearings, the Workgroup developed a letter report with twenty recommendations that it sent to the Secretary in September 2005. Citing the role PHR systems could play in improving health and healthcare and furthering the broad health information technology agenda, the letter report urges the Secretary to exercise leadership and give priority to developing PHRs and PHR systems, consistent with the Committee\ue2\u20ac\u2122s recommendations. The present report is a slightly expanded version of the letter report sent to the Secretary. Although substantively unchanged, it adds clarifying information for a broader audience.Acknowledgements -- Executive summary -- Background -- Personal Health records are evolving in concept and practice (Recommendations 1-2) -- Personal health record systems\ue2\u20ac\u2122 value depends on users, sponsors, and functionality -- Privacy (Recommendations 3-7) -- Security requirements (Recommendations 8-9) -- Interoperability (Recommendations 10-14) -- Federal Roles in PHR systems, internal and external (Recommendations 15-16) -- Advancing research and evaluation on PHR systems (Recommendations 17-20) -- Next steps for NCVHS"Developed by the Workgroup on the National Health Information Infrastructure (NHII) of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics"--P. 2.Also available via the World Wide Web.Includes bibliographical references

Starting on the Path to a High Performance Health System: Analysis of Health System Reform Provisions of Reform Bills in the House of Representatives and Senate

Compares the reform bills' reform provisions, with a focus on closing the coverage gap by creating an insurance exchange of public and private plans, strengthening Medicare, and expanding Medicaid. Examines implications for the budget and coverage rates

Treating the Health Care Crisis: Complementary and Alternative Medicine for PPACA

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) intends to take American health care in a new direction by focusing on preventive medicine and wellness-based treatment. But, in doing so, it does not adequately take into account the potential contribution of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). CAM is already used by a large and growing number of individuals in the United States, although to date there is limited scientific evidence to support the efficacy of most CAM treatments. This article proposes statutory reforms to PPACA to encourage CAM research and development (R&D), and the use of demonstrably effective CAM treatments. A hybrid system of limited intellectual property protection and government prizes based on regulatory approval may be the best option for incentivizing R&D on CAM, along with increased funding for research through the National Institutes of Health. PPACA should require health insurance plans to reimburse for evidence-based CAM and empower an existing government agency (NCCAM) to regulate CAM standards and to recommend evidence-based CAM services. Together these policy and funding mechanisms should help reduce U.S. healthcare costs and improve quality of life

Healthy Weight and Obesity Prevention

Overweight and obesity have reached epidemic levels in the United States and worldwide, and this has contributed to substantial cardiovascular and other health risks. However, controversy exists concerning the causes of obesity and effective modalities for its prevention and treatment. There is also controversy related to the concept of metabolically healthy obesity phenotype, the “obesity paradox,” and on the importance of fitness to protect individuals who are overweight or obese from cardiovascular diseases. In this state-of-the-art review, the authors focus on “healthy weight” with the emphasis on the pathophysiologic effects of weight gain on the cardiovascular system; mechanistic/triggering factors; and the role of preventive actions through personal, education/environment, and societal/authoritative factors, as well as factors to provide guidance for caregivers of health promotion. Additionally, the authors briefly review metabolically healthy obesity, the obesity paradox, and issues beyond lifestyle consideration for weight loss with medications and bariatric surgery.From the John Ochsner Heart and Vascular Institute, Ochsner Clinical School—The University of Queensland School of Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana; Department of Physical Therapy, College of Applied Health Science, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; PROFITH “PROmoting FITness and Health through Physical Activity” Research Group, Department of Physical Education and Sports, Faculty of Sport Sciences, University of Granada, Granada, Spain; Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Missouri School of Medicine, Columbia, Missouri; and the Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Ortega receives support for research activity from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and FEDER (DEP2016-79512-R); additional funding from the University of Granada, Plan Propio de Investigación 2016, Excellence actions: Unit of Excellence on Exercise and Health (UCEES); and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 667302. Dr. Kushner has served on the advisory board for Novo Nordisk, Weight Watchers, and Retrofit. All other authors have reported that they have no relationships relevant to the contents of this paper to disclose

Brain health: the importance of recognizing cognitive impairment: an IAGG consensus conference

Cognitive impairment creates significant challenges for patients, their families and friends, and clinicians who provide their health care. Early recognition allows for diagnosis and appropriate treatment, education, psychosocial support, and engagement in shared decision-making regarding life planning, health care, involvement in research, and financial matters. An IAGG-GARN consensus panel examined the importance of early recognition of impaired cognitive health. Their major conclusion was that case-finding by physicians and health professionals is an important step toward enhancing brain health for aging populations throughout the world. This conclusion is in keeping with the position of the United States' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that reimburses for detection of cognitive impairment as part the of Medicare Annual Wellness Visit and with the international call for early detection of cognitive impairment as a patient's right. The panel agreed on the following specific findings: (1) validated screening tests are available that take 3 to 7 minutes to administer; (2) a combination of patient- and informant-based screens is the most appropriate approach for identifying early cognitive impairment; (3) early cognitive impairment may have treatable components; and (4) emerging data support a combination of medical and lifestyle interventions as a potential way to delay or reduce cognitive decline