Flexible Fractal Network as a Foundation for Enhanced Wellness

Rapid developments in Communications and Computation will lead new disruptive innovation resulting in a better way to deliver healthcare and education to all - i.e. “e-Wellness.” The Flexible Fractal Network (FFN), an architecture for a scalable network with distributed processing, storage and control, presented in this paper, has the potential to play the role of the IBM-PC as the disruptive innovation to transform insurance-based, institutional health care into personalize, patient centered e-Wellness. With the rapidly growing demand for more home-based-care, especially for the aging population, and adaptive education, a new delivery system that leverages advances in Communications and Computation will benefit the patient/caregiver and student/parent/teacher. The Flexible Fractal Network, a new innovative perspective on Communications and Computation, with a core of a permanent, high-capacity, high-reliability, low-latency network (“5G-like”) is composed of scaled similar (fractal) networks. At each level, there are computational/storage / decision resources, which can provide services throughout the network. The key to the FFN is that all Network Resources [Transport, Storage, Computation, or Decision] are accessed as a Service and delivered “as needed.” The Node doesn't need to know where the actual hardware/algorithms are located. All Services are “paid for” through the aid of a Service Broker. The FFN provides rapid, reliable and secure transport, storage, processing and actuating as needed. With 5G at the “Local Level” [i.e. the “Edge”], the FFN backbone makes possible the integration of e-Health and e-Education [Health as a Service “HaaS,” Education as a Service “EaaS”]. The goal is to make the FFN the “IBM PC for HaaS & EaaS sparking the e-Wellness Revolution. Several FFN application examples are provided.