It’s been a very busy past few weeks and so I apologize for my lack of writing. To quote Mark Twain, “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated”. However, I’ve been working on some very interesting projects related to innovation in supporting caregivers.
I’m currently working on a review of interventions to support family caregivers. My hope is for a few different things:
- Combine the findings with Cameron’s “timing it right” framework. If we know that needs change over time, why shouldn’t our support of caregivers change over time? We (theoretically) have standardized patient guidelines, so why can’t we have something similar for caregivers?
- Inform strategy regarding complex, chronic care: For organizations such as Bridgepoint Health to have evidence to help them develop their strategies regarding patients and their family caregivers.
- Develop alternative models of service delivery: I’m curious (and excited) to know if family caregivers can be engaged in such a way as to develop alternative methods of service delivery. I see some parallels with recent business strategy to “turn your customers into assets” and wonder if we can turn patients and caregivers into “assets” to the health system. Could this be a first step toward a more decentralized model of care?
On another note, I was fortunate to attend the grand opening of ELLICSR – Electronic Living Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Cancer Survivorship Research (http://ellicsr.ca). The event was very festive with quite a few different people in attendance (see the flyer). I managed to see Jack Layton show-up to support the event.
In the meantime, I’m finishing off the above mentioned review and a few other projects, but plan to get back to writing. Some topics that I’ve been working on and plan to share include:
- Certification and standards in ehealth/health innovation
- The myth of cost savings in ehealth
- Some comments on Apple’s iPad and health care