Health and Nutrition Interactions

The community acknowledges that for sustainable prosperity to be achieved, there must be access to quality public health and medical services and sufficient and high-quality food. The Health and Nutrition Agency facilitates the achievement of these aims. It also provides health and life insurance to participants and owns and controls the district buildings.

While a stewardship in the community primarily refers to the business for which a participant has a responsibility to see succeed by leveraging the community’s econosystem, it can also be defined in terms of a person’s health and well-being, for which they have a responsibility to safeguard by healthy nutrition, access to healthcare, and quality cover, and therefore ensure the community’s overall success.

Participants therefore interact extensively with the Health and Nutrition Agency as they live and work in the community.

How the community handles health

Limited partners invest a minimum of $20,000 once they formally join the community, and continually add more units of partnership interest as their businesses prosper. They receive a return on their investment, paid out weekly by the Capital Bank Agency. From this income, they pay a participation fee of 10%, designed to ensure there are no poor in the community. They also pay health and life insurance premiums to the Health and Nutrition Agency, which ensures they are covered should they need medical attention.

Unlike the 10% participation fee, health and life insurance premiums are not static. They consider a participant’s age, health status, profession, and other conditions necessary to ascertain the level of risk involved. However, the community has an extensive public health system that helps prevent diseases and medical conditions. For instance, each room, including bathrooms and elevators, is equipped with skeleton cameras that can closely monitor and report on human movements. They are essential in preventing and urgently responding to falls, for instance.

In addition, devices like smart toilets will play a key role in arresting medical conditions early before they fully develop. With up to 20 AI–powered sensors, these toilets can measure blood sugar, weight, hydration levels, and temperature, and also be used to indicate early signs of diabetes, hypertension, cancer, and other illnesses. These features will help participants to keep tabs on their health, and to seek medical attention early enough. Ultimately, the risk of expensive medical procedures and routines is drastically minimized. This translates to much lower insurance premiums than would be the case, and lower medical expenses for participants.

As is the case with all other limited partners, professionals who work in the health sector are essentially business owners, setting their own rates, and work hours, and entering contracts with other businesses for common interest.

However, under the auspices of the Health and Nutrition Agency, and their own professional initiative, they work cohesively to enhance access to quality healthcare. The agency’s automated system and other mechanisms deployed by the community and professionals ensure fast access to complete information, to help them ensure the best health outcomes for their clients, and facilitate close collaboration.

Here, we illustrate how a typical participant will interact with the agency, and how such interactions help them succeed in health, socially, and economically.

Illustration 1: elderly couple

Lena and Antoni Wojcik were born in a small town outside Poznan, Poland around 80 years ago. They emigrated from Poland to the United States when both were in their early thirties.

Background

Lena had been a teacher in Poland, but, due to her low proficiency in English and lack of employment opportunities, she re-entered school and trained to be a caregiver while taking some English lessons part-time. After completing her initial caregiver course, she landed employment at a hospital near Boston. Through her personal initiative, she attained an Advanced National Caregiver Certification from the American Caregiver Association.

 Antoni had served in the army. When he got to the US, he secured a job in various factories, where he worked for most of his productive life. He earned a reputation as a quality control expert, owing to his vast experience and discipline, which he reckoned came from time served in the Polish army. However, he never received any formal training or certification beyond some sporadic courses offered by the various companies he worked for. The couple worked and saved hard to guarantee a comfortable retirement. They have also made a series of sound investments, securing their financial position.

The couple has three estranged children. In the years after their arrival in the US, there were endless conflicts between parents and children, as the parents insisted that the family should stick to their roots in the face of what they saw as too liberal a culture.

Joining the community

A few years ago, Lena and Antoni heard about the community. Lena applied, and as her entry process was being processed, she secured a contract working for an established caregiving business within the community. Here, she would help other caregivers in applying industry best practices in their services and ensuring the business’s client base grew. She worked outside the community for three years, at which point she and her husband were formally admitted, each as a limited partner in their own right.

After admission, Lena started her own caregiver business, and would soon be able to hire contractors to help her deal with her clients. Antoni, on the other hand, started a business contracting with another business that dealt with sea salt extraction. His role was mainly related to ensuring all systems were running well. He has excelled in his business and has been able to negotiate better rates while signing agreements with other contractors to offer his services.

Once in the community, Lena and Antoni worked through various channels to reconcile with their children. These efforts have only had limited success; they do speak rarely, such as on Antoni’s birthday, but otherwise, there is no family cooperation. They have resisted any talk of them joining the community.

Over time, Lena and Antoni have each managed to save substantial amounts of money, with each having secured 4 units of partnership interest, each worth $20,000. This is in addition to funds they hold in their term deposits, as well as regular incomes from their businesses. They are currently able to live comfortably.

Interaction with Health and Nutrition Agency

At the plant where Antoni works, the machines he uses are specially powered to detect motor function problems. While Antoni has no previous diagnosis for lifestyle diseases like diabetes and hypertension, his recent measurements in blood sugar and blood pressure have been outside the recommended range. Additionally, he has started experiencing confusion about time and has noticed he frequently has problems carrying out functions he once did with ease.

A vast collection of data about Antoni’s health is analyzed by the automated system, which additionally prompts him to provide more information to better arrive at a recommendation. The system then recommends that he undertake further tests with a specialized doctor to ensure that he is diagnosed properly.

Once Antoni selects the doctor whom he feels is best placed to help him, that doctor accesses Antoni’s private medical data, and the automated system’s analysis, and also interacts with Antoni and Lena. He diagnoses Antoni with the early stages of dementia and prescribes medical interventions to slow the condition.

In addition, the system helps Antoni to contract a nurse, who prepares a nursing diagnosis for Antoni and prescribes the necessary nursing interventions. The nurse helps Antoni and Lena implement and monitor the plan. The nurse also helps them to create and sustain a social support network to help Antoni as he ages.

Since he already has sufficient income from the return he receives from the Capital Bank and interest on term deposits, Antoni winds up his business for a few months and finally retires. The insurance coverage he has with the Health and Nutrition Agency covers a significant part of his medical expenses. He covers the rest with income from the Capital Bank. Additionally, he can pay for other services designed to make his life as comfortable as possible.

Lena, while still healthy and active, also receives a nursing intervention, which essentially helps her care for Antoni, tentatively helps the family reunite, and plan for the days ahead. The intervention incorporates Lena’s background as a certified caregiver. The plan also helps her prepare nutritious meals for herself and Antoni, which will significantly sustain their health.

While their children who have their own families, do not join, they are actively involved in Antoni’s care, helping him adjust, cope, and find a true purpose in life.

The early detection of dementia in Antoni helps caregivers communicate better, enables proper medical attention, and ensures that Antoni and his family can have productive days ahead even with his condition. Additionally, it helps significantly control the associated medical expenses that his condition demands.

Ultimately, all the information relating to Antoni is collected in the agency’s automated system. Analyzing this information helps the agency and practitioners to better respond to similar cases, and enables participants to access better health solutions.

Illustration 2: Nurse

Jimmy is a registered occupational health nurse. After completing his professional training at the University of Pittsburgh, he practiced for a while in several local hospitals, before securing employment at Alcoa. Here, he would help the company evaluate operational guidelines to boost safety. He also had a brief to manage cases once they occurred, reduce risk, and ensure compliance with safety regulations such as OSHA.

Joining the community

Jimmy is now 28. He’s yet to marry but intends to do so in the future after he feels he has stabilized well. At this time, he learns about the community and is interested in joining. After applying, and being approved to start the application process, Jimmy secures a contract with a mining business in the community’s surrounding areas. His contract’s terms are mainly along the same lines as his job description at Alcoa. This helps him quickly acclimatize to working in the community, although he has yet to join at this point.

After a few months of working, during which he pursues his application, he formally joins the community as a limited partner. He continues with his previous arrangement with the limited partner he had signed a contract. However, he also secures other contracts with other limited partners in the community, allowing him to enhance his income, rates, and experience.

Before he does this, however, the Health and Nutrition Agency requires that Jimmy undertake an assessment to establish his capabilities and skills, and determine whether they align with the community’s health endeavors. The agency finds this to be the case, with a few exceptions. It recommends a few courses that he needs to take to update his skills. The whole process is done through the automated system.

Once the agency is satisfied that he is now well compliant with its requirements, it issues Jimmy with a practicing certificate. The certification allows him to sign contracts to offer occupational health nursing services and emergency nursing services. This certification is charged and is renewed every few years, to ensure that as practice changes, so too does Jimmy, regularly updating his skills to be competitive.

Professional practice

The agency appreciates the importance of synergizing Jimmy’s skills with other medical and healthcare professionals in the community. It promotes the formation of nursing professional clubs, occupational health experts’ clubs, and similar initiatives to pool skills and provide for constant lifelong learning among members, as well as a system of enforcing professional ethics on members. The agency encourages Jimmy to join these clubs. It can encourage him to use incentives, such as membership attracting higher rates, or require membership in specific areas that are both critical and lucrative.  

Over time, Jimmy will have gained extensive experience working in the community. He will likely aim to expand his business and serve more clients. He will sign contracts with other occupational health nurses, who, based on Jimmy’s brand recognition, will feel they stand a better chance of earning more and having better prospects working with him. He might also decide to start a new line of business, contracting safety auditors to help his clients better respond to safety issues and plan better to align their operations with best practices and the law.