Health Literacy

The global costs of health illiteracy to civil society in 2015 were $1.2 trillion. 

The CHME program begins with making available curated best medical and healthcare practices in a manner and style that is easy to comprehend and apply. Participants are rewarded with Success Points and coached to greater health literacy by the CHME itself.

The CHME Portal provides a comprehensive integrated set of resources for community member awareness, support and community innovation.

The CHME engagement cycle is a simple process of signing up, getting sponsored, joining programs, tracking progress, earning Success Points, and paying forward.

The CHME is designed to work through secure, permission based interface with local medical care providers and social care providers. CHME provides HIPAA (medical records privacy) compliant interfacing for EMR (Electronic Medical Records) and associated CHME generated member profile and program engagement data.

The above diagram illustrates the multiple connections of various forms of health literacy. The BHT Protocol begins with making available curated best medical practices (Medical Literacy). This is achieved by offering on the CHME a simple description in plain language of the key elements, in a manner and style that is, easy to comprehend and apply.

An example: how to manage hypertension and its relationship to cardiovascular disease. A user simply clicks this category and up comes a well-presented introduction to the best, evidenced based, medical practices. After understanding the basics, the user is guided to several other closely related categories on the diagram—for example, Nutrition, Exercise, Emotions, and Culture. Simply making these connections induces a Stage 1 multiplier effect. It is the beginning of creating a “strategic leverage pathway” for users.

The Multiplier Effect is compounded by introducing the 10 Essential Moves, which induces key behavioral change. For example, a player can gain emotional literacy and measurably reduce blood pressure simply by practicing Move # 1–Quieting the Heart, or by learning to increase the temperature in his/her hands by a few degrees. This can easily be demonstrated and measured by a simple finger thermistor, which is easily obtained over the Internet and costs a few dollars. The protocol is simple and fun: Quieting the Heart >> raises finger temperature >> correlates with lowering blood pressure.

The Success Points program as noted below rewards such behaviors and further increases the multiplier effect. When this new knowledge is passed on (paid forward/Move # 7) to others, the rewards increase, and benefits extend to increasing larger circles within the local community. The interaction among the global users of the CHME significantly amplifies the process and engenders a sustainable community wide compounding multiplier effect.

Partners in Health: Shifting Physician/Patient Engagement

Empowering users to become health literate will induce a positive shift in the doctor/patient relationship toward a direction that is now widely welcomed by many parts of the medical establishment. Most physicians graduating from western medical schools are trained to examine patients and make diagnoses based on linear and vertical analysis. There is little time and few truly effective protocols to examine systemic effects. The CHME protocol enables users rapidly to understand their own health and wellness from a systems perspective. In this way patients and other users can become true partners with their health care providers.