Healthy Home Manager  (HHM)

The Healthy Home Manager is one of the modules in the series of Healthy Facility Management (HFM) tools that can be used to assess for qualities of a healthy environment.  The HFM series includes assessment tools for residential, commercial, clinic, and institutional environments. 

The Healthy Home Manager (HHM) is based on Children’s Mercy Hospital of Kansas City’s years of experience in the field. The application takes advantage of the assessment point catalog, defined over years of field work, in order to overcome all those doubts and questions. HHM is a dynamic web-based tool which will allow for effective assessment, compliance, and analysis. Assessing a home can be a never ending adventure for anyone. What to look at? What did you forget? Did I document correctly? Now there is a comprehensive and dynamic way to standardize, document, and store data for all your healthy home assessments.

This comprehensive tool is a user and client specific database of assessments and reports. The menu includes areas for Site, Building, and Room Assessment, along with health and symptom history, home maintenance and household products use. The data entry interface is Designed to be comprehensive and intuitive by using easy to understand language and icons.

Why a Healthy Home?
Your home is the most important place in your life. We spend 80% of our time indoors and, especially for young children, most of that time is spent in our homes. Research has shown that the quality of the home environment is an important determinant of our overall health. Indoor air pollution and other exposures in the home are linked to acute and chronic diseases. Home environmental assessments are important in helping families identify and to eliminate hazards in the home and minimize their impact on health. The Healthy Home Manager assessment tool allows the assessor to rapidly assess home environmental conditions and help families create and maintain healthier homes.

The Assessment
In the field, the assessor can use written field forms or use a tablet with internet access. The field forms can be printed from the application. Either method is cost effective and saves time. The photos taken by the assessor can be uploaded to the application and assigned to areas of concern. The assessor has the ability to add as many Actions per line item as required. When associated with an uploaded photo, a clear description of the concern is documented. Each line item can include a complete text description of the item of concern which helps to tie the concern to the Action and the photo.

The Report
Once data entry is completed, the application will generate a full report in PDF format. The file can be saved to your local storage for delivery via virtually any method. The versatility of an electronic report file allows for printing to paper, sending by email, and storing of an archive report copy. The report uses a simple color coded scoring and rating system that can be compared over time. The report documents all variables assessed and suggests what is "OK" and what is a "concern" in the report. The report can be given to the home owner for specific guidance on how to resolve the issues observed.
HHM can be edited in real time via internet access anywhere in the world!
The benefits of the application include:

• Secure internet access.
• UN and PW control permissions.
• Control access at the user level.
• Archive using PDF files.
• Dashboard for client management.

The Data
All data is stored in a database which is actually building your assessment report in real-time! The database drives an ASPX.NET based application which produces ease of use and fast production. The data is stored in a SQL database which allows for future retrieval and analysis. The potential analysis of data is almost unlimited. As a SQL database, the data is also exportable for use by other applications or for much larger analysis and trending.

The following are example screens from the application.

The Dashboard provides the Assessor with direct access to their clients, assessments, and reports.

Data entry pages are intuitive and provide the ability to describe the concern, upload images, and add actions.

The report summarizes the findings, using the color coding for visual highlight, and includes photos for documentation.

EFM Integrated, LLC

September 11, 2001