As most couples who are trying to have babies would agree, infertility treatment can be a stressful time. You will probably feel overwhelmed by a hectic schedule of medical checkups and infertility tests and treatments. Gathering and keeping track of all of the information generated can be a challenging task. When you are going through the worry and stress of infertility problems, the last thing you need is to have to remember the results of every test and procedure that you’ve had for the last 6 months! Not only do you have to decipher all that medical jargon, you have to make sure that your family doctor and IVF specialist are on the same page and talking to each other.

Yos Technologies InfertilityCare package is designed to help you manage your condition from beginning to end. The package provides you a centralized place to organize and store your Infertility information, doctor recommendation and treatment plan, testing and records so that you :

1. Never have to look for test results from your doctor, or wonder what test you had performed
2. Easily document and track the infertility medications you are taking
3. Never have to worry about trying to explain the details of your health care to someone else (such as another doctor or infertility specialist)
4. Make it easier for you to get a second opinion
5. Make it easy for a spouse/relative or friend to find your medical records in an emergency

This Personal Health Record ( PHR) is available 24/7; can be updated any time; can be shared with all doctors. We also provide value-added services which allow you to :

1. Manage your health activities with a Health Calendar using PC and mobile SMS.
2. Track and document all of the critical aspects of Infertility charting including, your BBT and fertility charts
3. Manage your IVF treatment with a Treatment Calendar and SMS reminders
4. Remind you of your “fertile time” by SMS, so you can improve your chances of getting pregnant naturally !
5. Enrich your understanding of the condition with Infertility Guide and Q and A.

Take charge of your health with YosCare - Your Personal Anytime Anywhere HealthCare Companion. Simply visit http://www.yoscare.in or SMS yoscare to 09845139786 to get your free YosCare Account today!

World Health Day on 7th of April marks the founding day of World Health Organization (WHO). It is an attempt to highlight a subject of major importance on Global Health each year. This year the focus is on adverse effect of climate change on global health.

WHO website talks about the following points regarding the World Health Day 2008

1) Health is a major area affected by the climate change : Human actions result in warming of earth’s atmosphere. This in turn unleashes a series of events which result in natural disasters, diseases and various kinds of pollution all of which are a threat to the health of mankind.

2) Impact of this change will hit the poor hardest : The effect will be most pronounced on developing countries with poor Public Health Infrastructure and countries with high level of poverty and malnutrition among its population.

3) Traditional Public Health tools will play an important role in countering the effect of this change: These tools include clean water and sanitation, immunization, safe and effective disease vector control.

4) A truly global initiative is needed to meet this global health threat which involves cross-sector interdisciplinary partnerships.

On the occasion of World Health Day we feel proud to be a health care IT company which is trying to revolutionalize the health care sector in the country with a first of its kind product called YosCare. Our continuing efforts are in a direction to provide easily accessible health tools, health related information and other facilities to health care consumers. Since its inception Yos Technologies has aimed at :

1) Empowering the health care consumer to take charge of his/her own health : The keyword here is charge which is made possible through a secure online health record and other self care and condition specific tools.

2) Enabling communication between consumers and health care providers:Our mission as stated on our corporate site is ” to create a Personal Health care System that seamlessly inter-connects consumers and providers through secure consumer-owned PHR, “Continuous Care” tools and information, that can be accessed Anytime, Anywhere using Internet and Mobile Technologies.”

3) Enhancing quality and efficiency of health care: Monitoring of vital health parameters like weight, blood sugar, blood pressure is very important for any healthy person or a person with some condition. This can be done easily through your PC/Mobile. During Emergency situations vital health related information can be obtained from your emergency card which helps the doctor in treating you effectively.These are some examples of how quality of health care can be improved.

4) Educating consumer with relevant information for improved self-care: Keeping in with the saying “prevention is better than cure” the consumer should be provided with health tips, answers to typical health related questions and vital information so that he/she can make informed decisions (in conjunction with the health care provider) and plan a healthy lifestyle which he/she is entitled to.

YosCare is your trusted, Anytime, Anywhere “Personal Healthcare Companion” that works with you to improve the quality of your health and life.

Just login to www.yoscare.in or SMS yoscare to 09845139786 to get your free YosCare account today.

CNN online carries an article today http://edition.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/04/03/ep.doctor.visits/index.html that lists top 5 things you need to be prepared with before meeting your Doctor for them to help you with proper diagnosis and treatment.
1. Bring in a list of medications
2. Come armed with your personal health history
3. Bring in your recent test results and doctors’ notes
4. Make a list of your concerns
5. Don’t ask your doctor insurance questions

Article though directed for the American audience underlines the key points that are applicable for patient and their caretakers worldwide. Here in India we typically see patients carrying the entire medicine strips, orally narrating the history of their conditions and recollect their conditions/concerns during the visit to the Doctor. This not only consumes time but is prone to missing out recollection of certain key data and conditions that can lead to mis-diagnosis or extended time period for diagnosis. Many patients carry different size files and folders that contains papers that needs to be organized and looked into by the Doctors themselves. During emergencies the caretaker may not be able to recollect the conditions completely.

To help patients and their caretakers to be better organized the article mentions some of the Personal Health Record sites to store the health related information and use it during Doctor visits. A plain PHR can help in documentation of the health conditions, however certain applications around it can make these data available to Doctors and other medical providers in the time you need them to be present and also make it easy to access the data through different modes like email, mobile etc.

YosCare offers Consolidated Health Report with which the Doctor can take a complete snapshot of all your conditions, medications you are having, tests and their results conducted to you and other conditions like family history, allergies and lifestyle habits. Take a copy of this with you when you visit the Doctor. This will help you to tell Doctor all you have in files and medicine strips that you used to carry before!. After the consultation make sure you enter the discussions you had with Doctor and the plan of care suggested so that the health report will be up to date for the next visit. Documenting health data in between visits also will make the Health report will capture your exact conditions for Doctor in next visit.

YosCare offers Emergency card which you can print and keep in your purse that will contain key information needed for Doctors/para-medical staff during emergencies[like blood group, allergies].

So in next visit to Doctor take the updated Health Report from YosCare and ensure that you get the correct diagnosis and start treatment at the earliest!.

A surprisingly large number of medical complications arise due to the patient failing to correctly follow the given prescriptions, failing to take medicine on time, forgetting to buy refills, missing critical doctor appointments, not tracking critical health parameters in a timely way. This “non-adherence” (as the doctors call it) to the prescribed treatment leads to increase in hospitalizations as well. The underlying cause of this behaviour may be a hot topic for the research fraternity to ponder upon but one thing is certain, having some device to keep track and remind you of all these activities would definitely be a big help! The ubiquitous mobile phone can play a big part in helping you manage your health. YosCare’s mobile based applications make your mobile phone a convenient healthcare monitoring device that tracks all of the critical health activities mentioned above.  Depending on your needs, different applications are available for your use:

• Appointment Management
  • You can set up appointment reminders after recording doctor consultation details into your PHR (Personal Health Record).
  • Various other health related activities like visit to labs for tests, meeting dietician etc. can also be recorded and reminders set using SMS reminders.
• Medication Management
  • You can set up medicine purchase reminders through your mobile after entering your medication details in your PHR. You can setup intake reminders for your daily medications for a pre-defined period. You can also setup medicine refill reminders.
  • You can request details of your active medication, while at the doctor’s or at the pharmacy through an SMS.
• Condition Management
  • If you have a chronic medical condition and need to monitor your parameters, your mobile can be your monitoring device. You can record and track the values of your weight, blood sugar, blood pressure etc through your mobile.
  • You can setup threshold limits for parameters you are interested in (your healthcare provider will help you in setting up a suitable threshold). YosCare will automatically alert you with an SMS if the recorded value goes beyond defined threshold limits. Even for a healthy person the monitoring of health parameters is essential for early detection and prevention of various conditions, especially lifestyle related ones like diabetes and hypertension.
• Special Condition Management
  • If you are undergoing IVF treatment, managing it becomes much easier by setting up SMS reminders for important dates.
  • A couple trying to have children can set up reminders for fertile days.

The key here is to make an everyday device like the mobile phone, a part of your healthcare routine, and YosCare helps you to do just that, through something as simple and common as an SMS.  

Just login to www.yoscare.in or SMS yoscare to 09845139786 to get your free YosCare account today.  To activate YosCare SMS services send the word register to 09845139786. 

In this post we take a look at the other category of health management seekers. This second set of people are those with chronic conditions who are interested in maintaining or improving their current condition and are keen on avoiding related health complications.

An example is a type-2 diabetic, who has to be on continuous medication, needs to measure his blood sugar often, needs to strictly follow prescribed basic exercises and a diet. How much of this is he following? Most patients barely manage to just take medicines correctly as they are overwhelmed by the other things they need to do as part of the plan of care, which includes visits to the lab for blood tests, maintaining all the lab reports, trying to follow the prescribed diet plan, and so on.

“Condition” Care

Chronic patients need more than just monitoring – they need a comprehensive “care” plan that encompasses information gathering, analysis, creation of appropriate diet and exercise packages, tools for both doctor and patient to monitor critical parameters and take pro-active action.

The key point to be considered is that all this needs to be built around the regular lifestyle of the patient. One major reason why healthcare plans fail is because these typically do not fit into a person’s lifestyle. Anything that attempts to drastically change a person’s normal routine is met with resistance. The challenge is to try and incorporate the person’s lifestyle into the treatment. This is especially true for chronic patients, who have to control their disease along with the other goals like weight reduction and diet control.

The other major problem for chronic patients is lack of relevant information on their condition, that would help them to take corrective action at the right time. For example, it is very important that a diabetic does not develop hypertension or any eye problems as that will worsen things for him. Availability of the right information that will help the patient to recognize symptoms early and prevent the condition from aggravating

Finally, while formulating the “care” package for the patient, it is extremely important for the doctor and care-giver to understand the entire medical history of the patient. For example, if the person consults a ophthalmologist, it is essential for the doctor to know his complete diabetes history. If the person forgets to take his diabetes records, he will give off the cuff answers to the doctor’s queries which may or may not be accurate. This can affect quality of healthcare. The doctor should also be aware of the person’s health problems, any active medications, medicinal allergies and so on, so that diagnosis can be proper..

All the above situations can be effectively handled with availability of updated, accurate health records and appropriate, personalized tools and information. YosCare “Condition Care” Packages have been designed keeping these needs in mind,

YosCare offers the following services to Chronic Patients:

1. Central, Secure storage of all health records including prescriptions, test reports, hospitalization etc which can be accessed anytime, anywhere
2. Health Appointment Management with SMS Reminders
3. Medication Reminders – Intake/Refill/Purchase
4. Health Monitors with alerts (relevant to condition)
5. History Forms (relevant to condition)
6. Treatment Calendars (relevant to condition)
7. Diet and Exercise Planners (Coming Soon)
8. Health Tips on Mobile (Coming Soon)

YosCare is your trusted, Anytime, Anywhere “Personal Healthcare Companion” that works with you to improve the quality of your health and life.

Just login to www.yoscare.in or SMS yoscare to 09845139786 to get your free YosCare account today.

Picking up from where we stopped in the last post, let us discuss the well segment and the importance of Preventive Care

The Well Segment

Most of the people in this segment are interested in maintaining their good health and health of their loved ones. They are also interested in protecting themselves from conditions they might be prone to - be it lifestyle diseases like hypertension, diabetes or hereditary diseases like asthma, arthritis etc. But how do they go about maintaining good health and preventing health complications? Some who are interested in fitness have managed to incorporate some form of exercise into their lifestyle, others try to have some level of diet control – but is that good enough? What more do they need to do to ensure they stay healthy and fit for the rest of their lives?

Preventive Care

This is where Preventive Care comes in. The keys to preventive care are

• Access to Health Information – Get the right (authentic) information at the right time.
• Monitoring of Health Conditions – Monitor those aspects of your health (key health parameters) that need to be managed to prevent conditions
• Prevention of Health Conditions – Take pro-active action to nip conditions in the bud through suitable measures

The concept of consulting a doctor for “Preventive Care” is not very prevalent. Even assuming that you do consult a doctor, are you serious enough to follow the advice? If you have a history of diabetes in your family, you are probably more prone to getting diabetes, and may need to follow some specific plans for reducing likelihood of contracting diabetes later, including a diet and exercise regime. How will you track and manage your diet? How will you manage your records? Will you remember to get your blood sugar level checked periodically?

YosCare’s Personal Care package offers you the right information and relevant tools that will help you manage your health effectively. Some of the salient features are :

1. Health Calendar and SMS Reminders
2. Health Monitor with alerts
3. Risk Assessment (Coming Soon)
4. Diet and Exercise Planners (Coming Soon)
5. Health Tips (Coming Soon)

YosCare’s Personal Care package is now available to all – just login to www.yoscare.in or SMS yoscare to 09845139786 to get your free YosCare account today.

This is a series of posts that describe the e-healthcare era and need for health management.

In today’s world, one would think that poor health, and the associated loss of time, money and energy would be a major area of concern for everyone – bread-earners, home-makers, parents and caretakers of children and elderly - but this is far from reality. The reason is not too far to seek – it is the non-availability of appropriate and easily accessible tools for effective personal Health Management, that has made people neglect this critical aspect of their lives.

Who needs Health Management?

The health-management seekers can be categorized into two sets - the first set are the “Well” people while the other set are the “Chronic” people.

• “Well” people can be defined as those who do not have any major illnesses but who are interested in maintaining good health to make sure they can lead a healthy life always.
• These are the people who need Preventive Care – tools that allow them to track their health parameters regularly, give them tips on health maintenance, and assist them to lead a healthy life without getting any of the lifestyle related diseases that have become so common today.
• “Chronic” people have one or more major illnesses and are required to do some level of “health maintenance” to prevent the condition from aggravating or causing other complications.
• These are people who need “Condition Care” – condition specific tools that help them to monitor their chronic conditions, with timely reminders and alerts that help them keep their condition under control, and also provide relevant care plans for better disease control.

The next posts discuss how Preventive Care and Condition Care is possible through innovative use of the PHR and relevant tools and applications.

Most people have heard of the phrase “Health is Wealth”, and not many would disagree with it.  Then why is it that we don’t take care of our health the way we take care of our wealth? Here’s a sample set of responses from people when questioned on their attitude towards healthcare

1. “I am healthy today. Why should I worry about my health?” - This person does not realize the importance of preventive care. There is a need to inform and educate people here
   
2. “I have some health problems but I am not motivated enough to follow the treatment plan” - This person needs some hand-holding, and busy doctors are not helping the situation either. There is a need for a healthcare companion that can guide consumers through their treatment.
   
3. “I am a chronic patient but I find it very inconvenient to manage my health effectively” - These consumers are already bogged down with their condition. Can we provide them relevant tools to help them to better handle their condition?

On the other hand, there are people who are very particular about managing their health and the health of their family. Here is what they have to say:

1. “I am healthy but my parents have health problems. How can I manage their health and my time effectively - These are busy people and need tools that allow them to manage their parents’ health without spending too much time on it
   

2.  “I have become a parent for the first time and need some help on what to expect, and guidelines on how to manage situations” - This person needs timely information. There are multiple books on the topic which is not that useful. Handy, consolidated information is what the person needs
   

3.  “I am pregnant and need to go to my home-town for delivery. Do I have enough information for the doctor in my town to manage my delivery?” - This person needs a convenient way to store and manage test reports, doctor prescriptions, scans etc so that they are also available wherever she goes.

We at Yos Technologies, are trying to answer these questions for our consumers. We believe that the only way we can get people to take control of their health is by “Empowering” them; empower them with relevant health information and tools that would allow them  to manage their health, and improve their quality of life.

Here is our vision on how this can be done:

•  The first step is for everyone to have his / her own online e-health account, pretty much like a bank account. That is, have a mechanism to securely store one’s  personal health records (PHRs) in a centralized location.
• Next, they need to be able to access the information where and when they want, and also be able to share part or all of the information with their healthcare providers as needed. So, have simple ways of entering and retrieving information – via PC, mobile or any other means.
• Third, there should be a way to provide relevant information and self help tools that will allow the user to manage their health calendar, medication intake, chronic conditions and also assist in preventive care. 

Our flagship product YosCare - “Your Online Personal Healthcare Companion” will bring this vision to reality and will go a long way in revolutionizing the Indian health care industry. 

YosCare is now available to all – just login to www.yoscare.in or SMS yoscare to 09845139786 to get your free YosCare account today.