Whole Person Integrated Care (WPIC): A healthcare transformation strategy supported by a novel spreadsheet-based software framework

This paper describes a humanitarian healthcare transformation strategy called Whole Person Integrated Care (WPIC). WPIC couples a Spreadsheet-based Software Framework (SSF) and a care delivery model that focus on increasing efficiency and effectiveness through evidence-based knowledge and action. This strategy: 1) integrates “sick care” (treatment of health problems) with “well care” (prevention and self-management) and 2) addresses both physical and psychological problems affecting a patient's health. The SSF currently utilizes Microsoft Excel to create simple, low-cost, and flexible software solutions that capture, import, export, transform, integrate, organize, store, analyze, render, and exchange data and information. Using a node-to-node (point-to-point) network architecture, clinicians, researchers, patients, and others can connect securely and resiliently, anywhere and anytime, across national and organizational boundaries. This allows collaborators to build, share, evaluate, and evolve evidence-based knowledge and analytic models. The shared knowledge and models are used to make projections, reveal existing problems, identify risks, and offer solutions that support decisions for clinical and business process improvement. The paper also describes an SSF application recently piloted in a Federal health information technology program, and proposes an open source community.