Finding Our Why

According to Simon Sinek, the author of "Starts With Why" and the concept 'the golden circle", the reason the Wright brothers, Dr. Martin Luther King and Apple are successful despite having access to the same or in some cases less resources is because they understand and were driven by the ‘Why’.  He believes what distinguishes successful ideas, companies or movements from unsuccessful is they start with the why (thanks Neil for sharing).

So it got me thinking about our why.  People want nothing more than the feeling of independence, identity, control and comfort of home whether they are sick or well.  My grandma Stella, like a inmate doing life who's only way out is hatching an escape plan, went to great lengths to escape the hospital.  She wanted to be home!  Hospitals, although sterile for a reason, are not conducive for healing. They aren't designed for emotionally and psychologically healing and some would argue without these physical healing can never be sustained.

Our Why

To empower elder to get control of their health so they can get and stay well at home.  This is where and what Stella wanted to be, at home and well.  Ask any nurse what the most frequently asked question they get in a hospital setting "when can I go home?" or "when am I getting out of here?".  Our homes are a fundamental part of us, our healing and our personal wellness (identity, emotional health, etc.).  Could this be our mantra “Bringing health, home.”?  

Our How

By providing the tools, awareness and approach to build the skills, knowledge and confidence to get control of their health at home.

Our What

Self directed health awareness to get and stay well at home (easy, visual, accessible and familiar tools, techniques and a personalized hands-on approach).  

Our community is developing a tool kit and the approach for a  person and their family to self direct their health with the coaching and support of health professionals to build skills, confidence and knowledge to get and stay well at home.

We have identified the elements that are important to health confidence.  We discussed them here last week and I have notes expanding on each element here:

With this family, spouse, caregiver and practitioners can better interact with your world to support you.  There is research that shows that to build skills, get knowledgeable and feel confident it is very important that this is built through hands-on application.  There are many teaching models that show positive results but the two most successful are the ‘Teach-back’ method and Dr. Coleman’s coaching model (simulated learning). We found that for my grandma Stella the keystone element was a visual medication list that built her knowledge and confidence in her medications and her health.

This week we will go over what this bringing health, home looks like and how we are going to make it happen.  We developed a design language and need to finalize the high level requirements.  We all agreed that we need to design and test in small, quick iterations with feedback from people we are trying to bring health home.