Enterprise Health Care

The HouseCare Group

"Mistakes are as serious as the results they cause!" - Dr. House

Background

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) used the results of two major studies, one based on data from Colorado and Utah, and the other from New York to report on the extent of adverse events in the health care industry. Extrapolating those results over the 33.6 million hospital admissions per year, it was estimated that 44,000 people die and $17 billion are lost each year due to preventable medical errors. "An adverse event is defined as an injury caused by medical management rather than by the underlying disease or condition of the patient."[1]

In the New York report, it was found that adverse events that required prolonged hospitalization or disability occurred in 3.7 percent of the hospitalizations. Of those, 58 percent were due to errors and 27.6 percent was due to negligence. "Although most of these adverse events gave rise to disability lasting less than six months, 13.6 percent resulted in death and 2.6 percent caused permanently disabling injuries. Drug complications were the most common type of adverse event (19 percent), followed by wound infections (14 percent) and technical complications (13 percent)."[1]

This represents only a small portion of the problem since the sample population was limited only to admitted hospital patients and does not include ambulatory, outpatient, physicians offices, pharmacies, etc.[1]

[1]Linda T. Kohn, Janet M. Corrigan, and Molla S. Donaldson, Editors; Committee on Quality of Health Care in America, Institute of Medicine, "To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System", http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=9728

Problem Statement

The healthcare industry is for the most part, still dependent on paper based medical records that are decentralized, poorly accessible, and redundant.
 
A myriad of tools are already available to manage medical records electronically, but lack of national standards, lack of trust in the ability to secure data, and poor interoperability has hampered the industry from adopting Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) and has prevented the medical industry from delivering the best quality services to patients.
 
The current system has resulted in the loss of important patient medical information, the inability of doctors to collaborate, medical errors, and an often negative experience for patients and health care providers alike.
 
Disconnects in health care communication systems can result in consequences ranging from inconveniences to fatalities and cost upward of $17 billion annually.

Mission Statement

The HouseCare Mission Statement is to develop an architecture (Mediprise) and business plan for a fully-integrated and standardized electronic healthcare management system to be used by patients, healthcare providers, and pharmacies. Initial functionality should be delivered in the 2012 timeframe and extend through 2022.  

Team Members

Jennifer Deroy
James Gomez
Jennifer Sandels
Quinise Sherman

housecare@googlegroups.com