Why Does HealthHive Exist?

Like many, the Co-Founders of HealthHive have been involved in the care management of aging family members, and the process was excruciating. The lack of shared information, coordination, communication, and visibility was distressing for all of us, and its impact on the care of our loved ones was profound. As we talked to hundreds of others, we found that this was a universal problem for the individual, their family, caregivers, providers, and virtually all participants in the healthcare system. Although we wish the delivery system was different, we can’t change that. But what we can do, is take existing systems, processes, and people and converge in a more efficient and patient-centric manner.

As we look at the landscape, many companies focus on the individual (and their family) or the clinical enterprise. Often, the companies on the clinical side ask users to adapt to the technology instead of creating solutions structured around needs and workflows. And those focused on the family often ignore the importance of clinical data, and do not emphasize what needs to be done to stay healthy, support recovery, or have care delivered in accordance with the individual’s needs and preferences.

HealthHive believes that the best healthcare engages the community. As a result, we look to embolden the individual, their family, and their formal and informal caregivers to actively participate in care management. This group has the most significant opportunity to impact care delivery, quality of life, and cost savings, and their value is mainly unrecognized within the traditional healthcare community.

HealthHive seeks to bridge the gap between the range of participants in the ecosystem. From the perspective of the enterprise, we give users the option to engage with HealthHive actively or to have HealthHIve essentially operate as middleware, with most users unaware of our existence. Our goal is to share information of value with all relevant parties without burdening people with information that doesn’t matter to them.

From the consumer side, we make it easy to “build the Hive,” allowing the individual (or their legal proxy) to choose who they would like involved in their care management. Their family? Neighbors? Community groups? Remote loved ones? We also focus on ensuring that the Hive contains clinical data. Although much of this data is of limited use to the individual, the ability to share this with the right people at the right time is incredibly valuable. Further, this data will enable HealthHive to raise awareness of issues and resources of value to our users.

Finally, consistent with our view of the community, we are looking to partner and integrate with other solutions. Our goal is to support the needs of all interested parties and do it in the most efficient and effective matter.

Where do we start? With Skilled Nursing. Learn why in Part II.