The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has launched a new initiative, Home as a Health Care Hub, to help reimagine the home environment as an integral part of the health care system, with the goal of advancing health equity for all people in the U.S. While many care options are attempting to use the home as a virtual clinical site, few have considered the structural and critical elements of the home that will be required to absorb this transference of care.
The FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health has contracted with HKS to consider the needs of variable models of a home and tailor solutions with opportunities to adapt and evolve in complexity and scale. The hub will be designed as an augmented reality/virtual reality-enabled home prototype and is expected to be completed later this year.
The partnership includes collaboration with patient groups, healthcare providers and the medical device industry to build the Home as a Health Care Hub. This prototype will serve as an idea lab, not only to connect with populations most affected by health inequity, but also for medical device developers, policy makers, and providers to begin developing home-based solutions that advance health equity. By beginning with dwellings in rural locations and lower-income communities, the planned prototype will be intentionally designed with the goal of advancing health equity.
