QUTURE HEALTH, LLC
Wellness-Driven Precision Health
The myQuture “Smart Health Record”
Quture Health is founded on three
(3) fundamental novel innovations at the convergence of science and technology. The first and essential innovation is the
myQuture individual-controlled health and health care record. The push for personalized medical records
(PMR’s) began years ago. But these
converging forces of science and technology, along with
- federal requirements of electronic medical record (EMR) vendors,
- remote monitoring devices, sensors & wearables,
- changing medical care practices toward telemedicine and physician demands for accurate, complete summarized patient information,
- shifting personal perspectives to optimal wellness rather than episodic medical treatment of illness, and
- medical advances in the fields of “omics,” such as advanced genomic testing
have exponentially changed what is possible as PMR's. This discussion is intended to consider how and why the myQuture Informatics Platform, with its innovative personalized health and medical record (PHR/PMR), will rapidly become the next advancement in health and health care.
If you think about what you are
seeing in this picture, you would say it’s a “smartphone.” But the reality is that it’s not a “phone” at
all. Sure, it can make a call, but with
all the apps and connectivity, just think about how incredibly “smart” this
technology has become so rapidly and how they have changed our lives.
The myQuture PHR/PMR is so much
more than a medical “record;” it will become just as “smart” and change our
lives in ways we are only beginning to understand. As we start to explore the myQuture "smartrecord" PHR/PMR
on the myQuture Informatics Platform, I want to first explain why it is not
just a medical record - it's a health record.
We live in the time of seismic
shifts in seven (7) essential forces that will shape the present and future of
health and health care. While each and
all of these forces are relevant to this discussion, one fundamental shift in
our thinking and behaviors as a society will have unique impact. How we see ourselves, each person as an
individual from the perspective of our own health, is critical to how we engage in
our health care by clinical professionals and hospitals.
For those who see themselves as more than patients, as individuals
who seek optimal wellness, this moment in time is transformational.
Americans have a tendency, a
traditional orientation, to looking to medicine for their health. In reality, health is determined from five
(5) major factors: genetics, social circumstances, environmental factors,
lifestyle behavior and health care. Of
these lifestyle behavior, such as physical activity or inactivity, obesity,
smoking and alcohol consumption, is the strongest determinant of health
responsible for approximately 40% of deaths, followed by genetics (30%) with
health care (10%) playing a minor role in reducing premature deaths. McGinnis
JM, “Health in America – The Sum of Its Parts,” Journal of the American Medical Association 287(20): 2711-12 (May
2002).
The myQuture “smartrecord”
PHR/PMR collects all health related data, not just health care data. People as private individuals will have the
ability to collect and aggregate all their health data into a single database. They will not only own but control their health data. Their smart
health record will then be capable of massive “smart” applications using
science and technology. This is sounding
more and more like a smartphone! Will it
become the next shiny thing?!
What looked like a medical chart,
a patient’s medical record, will evolve just as phones have evolved from
antiques to smartphones. Just looking at
this picture reminds me of how when we were reviewing medical records it made
me feel like no one knew much about me.
I felt like a number. . . .
The first point of this
discussion is that people want all their health
data, not just their health care data.
What used to be your health record will be entirely different and
capable of helping people as individuals navigate their lives – for wellness
not just for illness. And help their
clinical healthcare professionals to take better care of them when they need
care
What does health data look like
in the myQuture smart health record? In
addition to the traditional health care data from medical records, it collects
and integrates data from two (2) other extraordinarily personal information
sources: an individual’s “risk factors,” and data they generate from yes, their
smartphone applications transferred from monitoring devices, sensors and
wearables. There are other novel sources
of personalized data from the internet, such as technology the CDC analyzes to
predict epidemics worldwide. But let’s stick
with these two (2) other simpler sources for now.
The myQuture “Smart Health
Record” runs on the myQuture Informatics Platform. This is a software platform unifying multiple
software programs combined with sophisticated advanced technologies and
analytics. Quture Health is exclusively
licensing the QualOptima Connectivity & Analytics Platform from Quture
International, Inc. (QUTR) for personalized, individualized, precision health. The novel and innovative intellectual capital
embedded in QualOptima is protected by a provisional patent application, now in
the process of filing with new supplements for an interlocking patent
application for Quture Health. One of
the fundamental and essential elements of that technology is the evidence-based
science of calibrating clinical performance and outcomes measures with personalized risk factors.
Quture Health is developing these
evidence-based risk factors in collaboration with Quture International. The science of risk factors for Quture, which
we call meFactors©, expands on traditional medical risk factors to include
wellness, fitness and omics factors. Quture’s
meFactors© include not only predisposing negative risks but factors measuring
wellness and fitness. On the positive
side of the illness or health equation, these factors are proven to
significantly improve a person’s chances of survival of conditions such as
cancer. They definitely improve the
quality of life for chronic and acute conditions. Quture Health introduces a scientific
approach to wellness and true fitness which we anticipate will rapidly propel
us to prominence. Anticipating the
immediate and future advances in medicine in the field of “omics,” meFactors©
also include genome, epigenome, transcriptome, proteome, metabolome, microbiome
and exposome.
For example, Quture Health is
developing a personalized application to measure oxygen consumption and aerobic
capacity, which is the standard diagnostic and prognostic testing used in
cancer survivor programs. The predictive
value of peak oxygen consumption (VO2peak) to objectively measure
cardiorespiratory fitness will scientifically provide individuals and their
clinical advisors to quantify wellness and fitness. The capability to survive cancer and other
chronic and acute conditions is now becoming an individual’s “understood self”
lifestyle motivator.
The third data source populating
the myQuture complete PHR “Smart Health Record” is possible because of another
emerging science and technology development – monitoring devices, biosensors
and wearables. One of the basic business
opportunities for Quture Health comes from individuals increasingly engaged in
their health (e.g. smartphone and smartwatch applications for movement and
exercise) and in their health care (e.g. remote glucometer monitoring devices
for diabetes). Through a strategic
partnership, myQuture has the existing capability to use Bluetooth technology
from remote monitoring devices, sensors and wearables to capture
patient-generated data and transmit it though their smartphone to the myQuture
Informatics Platform.
The myQuture PHR/PMR uniquely
integrates data fundamental to care by physicians and clinicians with their own
data, also used personally as an individual for optimal health and
wellness. Now that the three (3) sources
of data have been explained, the next focus of this discussion is on how
healthcare data will be transmitted, collected from all the different and
disparate data sources of health care.
Without going into the complexities of technology “interoperability,”
it’s because of the fascinating federal expenditure as of 2014 totaling about
$24 billion spent to drive adoption of electronic health records in the United
States.
The “Blue Button” federal
requirement provides that every patient can electronically transfer their own medical
data from any EMR to a database specified by the individual. This is required of every certified
electronic medical record (EMR) vendor by standards based on regulations of
Meaningful Use (MU) Stage III (beginning in 2015). For the first time, individuals can collect
all of their health care information from doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, test
facilities and other sources into a single aggregated database which the
patient controls.
The second point of this
discussion is the remarkable, novel and innovative data sources collected into
the myQuture “Smart Health Record.” The
third point was actually made earlier in this discussion; people will want to
not only own but control their health
data!
The timing for Quture Health is
so compelling that it coincides with a “Perspective” article just published in
the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine
by prominent Harvard physicians/professors/IT leaders, Drs. Kenneth Mandl and
Isaac Kohane. (“Time for a
Patient-Driven Health Information Economy?” NEJM
374(3): 205-08 (January 21, 2016).
These physicians persuasively
point out: “A patient-controlled health
record infrastructure can support the development of highly desirable health
system qualities. First, it allows a patient to effectively become a health
information exchange of one: as data accumulate in a patient-controlled
repository, a complete picture of the patient emerges. If patients can obtain their
data wherever they go, they can share them with physicians as needed — rather
than vice versa.”
Selected
Reasons for Pursuing
Patient-Controlled
Data.
|
|
Need or Purpose
|
Explanation
|
Complete data
|
A patient-controlled health record,
updated after each health encounter, would provide a complete view of the
patient (in contrast to that available in institution-specific electronic
health records).
|
Data sharing for coordinated care
|
In the absence of other effective
mechanisms, patients may be the best vehicle for making data available to
their clinicians and family.
|
Use of data by intelligent software or
apps
|
Patient-controlled data repositories,
properly configured, could be the nexus of patient-facing apps for care
management, participation in research, and data sharing.
|
Support of diagnostic journeys
|
Patients and families with undiagnosed
or difficult-to-treat conditions are now manually assembling complex data
sets, including genomic data, to present to researchers and clinicians.
|
Data donation
|
Under myriad consent and authorization
models, patients are increasingly figuring out how to contribute data to
research.
|
Patients as reporters
|
The patient is a source of data that are
complementary to the information found in institutional records; bidirectional
data exchange with patients could become a cornerstone of the medical record.
|
Additional pairs of eyes
|
Patients can identify and correct errors
in the medical record.
|
Social networking
|
Health data are a basis for finding
other patients with similar conditions or genomic variants.
|
The myQuture PHR/PMR coincides
with the remarkable recognition by prominent physicians that patient controlled
medical records are the future of medical care.
Drs. Mandl and Kohane refer to “Patient-Controlled Data
Repositories.” The myQuture Informatics
Platform anticipates the needs and advantages of such aggregated, complete
patient-controlled medical records as summarized in the chart above from that
very recent and compelling article.
Quture Health sees people as so
much more than “patients.” Our
technology platform is not simply “Patient-Controlled,” but is an Individual-Controlled Data Repository. With myQuture, remote monitoring devices,
wearables and sensors will empower those who want to enjoy optimal health and
longevity to generate their own unique data – “individual-generated data.”
The first and fundamental value
proposition of Quture Health is the personalized health and medical record
(PHR/PMR) – the “Smart Health Record” of its myQuture Informatics
Platform. The myQuture PHR/PMR collects
all health information of an individual in a single, central database which is
owned and controlled by the individual.
While ownership is conferred on the individual by HIPPA legislation,
patient health data is controlled on the electronic medical records (EMR’s) of
various vendors with contracts with physicians, hospitals, pharmacies, testing
facilities and laboratories, and health insurance companies.
Quture Health is committed to
those people as individuals who want to achieve optimal health and wellness, to
those individuals who want to control their own health and medical
information. Just as Quture
International (QUTR) is committed to those who provide medical care to achieve
optimal clinical, financial and operational outcomes, Quture Health is
committed to people who want to achieve and maintain optimal health and health
care outcomes for themselves. We believe
that health insurers and employers will want to engage powerfully with these
individuals, with financial incentives and opportunities.
The myQuture “Smart Health
Record” for Quture Health’s Wellness-Driven Precision Health is the beginning
of what we hope you will agree is the next frontier in American (and ultimately
global) individualized health and health care.
My next post will explore how an informatics platform works – on an
intelligent or “smart” database with embedded technologies and analytics. This is Quture Health’s Individual-Controlled Data Repository. Then the following discussion
will explore how it will be “smart” from other advances in science and
technology once a person controls their health and healthcare data on that
database,. Those posts will explain the
myQuture “HealthScape Information System©” for their own health, wellness and
fitness goals, as well as working with their health care professionals and
hospitals on the “care plans.” People
will want to control their data and their care plans, not entrust their
personal information, “records” and “care plans” to electronic medical record
vendors of doctors and hospitals in the age of “Smart Health Records.”
© G. Landon Feazell
February 12, 2016