Fare2Care Concept Addressing Preventative Care Access Revealed at HCD Virtual
A team of designers at SmithGroup has developed Fare2Care, an innovative concept to provide more equitable and convenient access to preventative care. The concept was developed for Healthcare Design magazine's Breaking Through competition, which invites healthcare designers to push beyond the typical restrictions to solve challenges in healthcare delivery. SmithGroup’s concept, one of four competition finalists, was unveiled at the HCD Virtual 2020 conference. Fare2Care received second place and is featured in the December issue of Healthcare Design magazine.
The SmithGroup team challenged themselves to positively impact public health equity through broadening access to preventative care. Team members Satish Atkari, TJ Howells, Kenta Kamei, Stephen Parker and Y Pham, supported by advisors Karthik Ramadurai, Erin McNamara, Wayne Barger, George Karidis, Janet Attarian, Heather Chung, Sven Shockey, Kris Lucius and Vlad Torskiy, developed the Fare2Care solution utilizing existing transit infrastructure to dramatically expand the primary care system.
Fare2Care is an integrated solution marrying physical "care cars" with a technology platform that streamlines the patient experience. The care cars, comprised of interchangeable and transferable clinical modules, can be attached to mass-transit trains operating on the thousands of miles of metro rail weaving through urban centers across the United States. This allows transit riders to access care convenient to them and leverage time spent commuting.
Fare2Care also embeds disease detection and containment technologies into metrorail stations, helping to mitigate contagion of preventable diseases. Fare2Care can direct unwell transit riders entering at rail gates to the care car to check vitals and determine whether a visit to a medical facility is needed, effectively isolating potentially infectious riders.
Learn more about the Fare2Care concept in the video presented at the HCD Virtual conference.