Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

Health Canada reports that the costs of managing chronic diseases accounts for 58% of all annual health care spending, or an estimated $68B and growing. Chronic diseases lead to an estimated loss of $122B in productivity or double the costs of managing these diseases. Telemedicine and patient education can significantly reduce the factors that drive patient readmissions and post-op complications. ForaHealthyMe Inc. has a web based portal - ForaHealthyMe.com which is a clinically-validated web and mobile platform that enables patients and their caregivers to be better informed, empowered and engaged in the management of their health. The company is collaborating with Durham College in this project to add new functionality to the existing ForAHealthyMe platform including the integration of online virtual consultation and classrooms. These improvements will include interfaces and data management for scheduling of virtual meetings, single sign-on integration with the existing application and affordances for easy access to ForAHealthyMe's educational materials. This tele-solution will help our healthcare institutions improve the quality of care and reduce costly patient readmissions due to medical events and complications. This will also help patients manage their chronic condition at home while enhancing the hospital's capacity to monitor them remotely, provide access to validated educational content, consultation and counseling services.