Smart Cities Solutions offer innovative means to proactively address health and wellness. It lends relief to an already strained healthcare system, one which faces ever-increasing demands and quality expectations in light of continued urbanization, industrialization, an aging population, climate change, and growing healthcare costs.
It’s often been said that the US has a sick care system rather than a healthcare system because the focus has been on treating the illness rather than root causes. To move towards a genuine health care system, we need to better share knowledge on healthy lifestyle habits. Technology can play an important role in this effort. It can be used to simplify tracking and to share information on areas such as nutrition, sleep, exercise, mental health, and stress management in real time.
Looking beyond increasing awareness, it’s important to prioritize health and wellness goals in early planning and architecture phases. We must proactively design with these areas in mind. For instance, at Cisco, Health and Wellness has been a key pillar of our Smart Cities strategy since we began our journey 10 years ago. We asked ourselves, “If you had unlimited storage and bandwidth at a reasonable price, would you run healthcare in a city in the same way?” Here are a few ways Cisco is putting this approach into action.
As the name implies, health and wellness are integral parts of Lake Nona’s upfront design. They are committed to building an innovative and connected community that’s focused on healthy living and sustainable design. The 650-acre master-designed community is home to thoughtfully designed neighborhoods, education facilities, recreational centers, and some of the nation’s leading hospitals, academic, research institutions. Cisco and Tavistock Group worked on the Lake Nona Medical City project in Orlando to implement a unified lifelong wellness and medical care model between the numerous medical care and life sciences stakeholders within the Lake Nona Medical City.
Their collection of world-class medical facilities makes Lake Nona a living lab for medical innovation.
