Ignite Consultants
Government Priorities in New Zealand Healthcare for the Disabled and Disadvantaged
- Every health organisation collects patient healthcare information.
- Health results to be made available to clinicians.
- By 2014 an individually owned health record by all New Zealanders.
“Health IT is hard because it is a reflection of a culture and its beliefs”.
“Where do the 5%-10% of people with different disabilities and chronic illnesses, who actually really need improved health information management systems and who are obviously among the most costly to treat, fit in this system? Will we have to wait till 2014 or beyond until something will be available? Would it be an idea to put something out there, maybe not very pretty, but something simple, test it, get feedback from the users, improve, test again, get feedback, improve etc? We can quite quickly develop something which can change not only how the data is managed but actually positively impact the lives of many people and organisations who are supporting them, leading the way to transformation of medical industry.”
Our First Community Group Meeting! (Part 1: Introduction)
Yesterday, with help of Sue Russell from DCOSS, Ignite Consultants held a meeting under the theme: Healthy Community Enabled by Information: Social Innovation at Work. Representatives of nine different organisations attended. Despite very short notice they kindly came to share their ideas and feedback on what can be done to address some of the problems arising due to inefficient information management systems between patient, doctors, caregivers and other parties engaged in patient health management.
We started the meeting with everybody introducing themselves, I gave a short introduction followed by guest speaker Hamish MacDonald who presented his innovative technology, Lifetime Health Diary™
I met Hamish nearly one year ago, when running my Social Entrepreneurship Project. He approached me to tell me about the global mission of his company including the 5 billion plus of those who are the most health disadvantaged in the global community, including even in our communities such as the disabled, cultural minorities, people living with chronic conditions, the elderly, etc. who very often face significant challenges in obtaining adequate access and delivery of health services.
But it wasn’t till 2 months ago when he actually showed me what, together with his team, he managed to build and how the vision becomes reality. Intrigued, and seeing a huge potential in how this tool could help people with different disabilities, I took the idea to different organisations to see what they thought. The response was overwhelming.
Lifetime Health Diary™ is a secure, free, patient-owned, internet-based health diary for recording, monitoring and self-managing one’s health, as well practice health prevention. It captures and systemizes all data inputs into an easily understandable “Graphic Natural History” of your heath through lining up all your data by temporal correlation – which is a fancy way of saying your background lifestyle factors and life events are lined up by date alongside your clinical data. This allows your unique clinical story to be better understood by clinicians and caregivers that you personally invite by secure email link to view your health record.
During the meeting Hamish talked about his friend and business partner, Dr. Atsushi Matsunaga, the inventor of the software and a person very frustrated with the inability of the healthcare system to prevent illness in the first place. Hamish shared the history and idea behind the innovation outlining 7 Requirements for the system: i) Better health outcomes for you; ii) Quicker prognosis for your doctor; iii) Shared Patient Care among your Caregivers; iv) Interoperable amongst their different systems; v) All under your Control, vi) Transferable; Accessible, Portable & Private; vii) Free for both you and your doctor.
Hamish finished his short talk, and suddenly, “Access to information”, “Better health care delivery”, “Control and empowerment”, “Patient in the centre of the health system”…a lively discussion had suddenly started and Hamish was under a stream of questions. Details in the next blog post…!
The Project: A Healthy Community Enabled by Information
The project is a result of a partnership between Ignite Consultants and Lifetime Health Diary Ltd and a number of community groups. We all see a great need to address some of the pressure and problems resulting from the inefficiencies of the current health information management system. A significant slice of the population is not receiving the healthcare they should be, for a variety of reasons. This only makes all of society poorer, as their conditions and quality of life get worse and more expensive to treat than would otherwise be the case with timely interventions.
We believe in a bottom-up approach and harnessing the power of technological innovation, academic expertise matched with real needs of real people on the ground, powered by the spirit of young, talented students who want to make a difference.
We want to work together to, in a collaborative manner, enable cost-effective solutions and drive a movement of access, empowerment and knowledge in healthcare.
I am thrilled to be a part of it and I truly believe that this is the beginning of an exciting journey of collaborative effort to not only empower those the most disadvantaged to live better lives but transform the way we manage our health and interact to create a healthy community enabled by information.
We want this blog to be a communication platform for everybody who is involved and who is supporting this initiative, to share ideas and track our progress. Let`s get it started!
A Little Background About Me
My name is Aga and together with 6 outstanding individuals I run Ignite Consultants, an organization which aims to channel resources, train leaders and build partnerships between businesses, the not-for-profit sector and academia for the growth of a sustainable society.
I am from a very entrepreneurial background, interested in how to make a sustainable difference in communities. I grew up in Poland, studied and worked in Glasgow, and have been continuing my life adventure here in Dunedin, New Zealand for the past year and a half.
While running a Social Entrepreneurship Project here in Dunedin, New Zealand, I came across Hamish MacDonald and Lifetime Health Diary Ltd. But it wasn’t until 2 months ago when he actually showed me his innovative software that with my experience of working with different disability groups and not-for-profit organisations, I saw it as a tool which could make a huge difference by enabling people to better communicate with doctors and caregivers as well as putting control back into their own hands.
The last couple of months has been an exciting journey; a huge learning curve, meetings with more than 20 organizations, discovering problems, thinking, rethinking, matching pieces of the puzzle and creating a strong vision of Healthy Community Enabled by Information
Encouraged by support from Otago University, local bodies and politicians we have decided to kick off a collaborative project which we strongly believe will create a huge impact in Dunedin’s communities and hopefully later, other communities in New Zealand and around the world.
This series of blogs will document our work, results, learnings, progress and everything else involved in bringing better health to communities! If this is a topic of interest for you, I would love to hear from you, wherever you are!
How a true passion can bring a sustainable difference
Hi Everyone,
I am thrilled to introduce you our guest blogger, a very inspiring social entrepreneur Aga Nazaruk, a director at Ignite Consultants based in Dunedin, New Zealand. Over the next few days and weeks as it progresses she will be covering a new Project: A Healthy Community Enabled by Information -a partnership between Ignite Consultants and Lifetime Health Diary Ltd and a number of community groups. You’ll be truly amazed (because I am!) what a real change a few people can make by embarking on a collaborative project and working towards a mutual goal!
I met Aga back in Spring of 2010 and was literally stunned to see how much power, energy and passion for driving social innovation into communities, training and inspiring leaders and building partnerships between businesses, the not-for-profit sector and academia for the growth of a sustainable society this petite girl possesses. She reminds me of this powerful storm coming onto the shore, sweeping off the dust and old litter, and bringing a fresh air, fresh prospective and a real change onto the ground.
Aga, welcome aboard! Looking forward to your great posts.
