When he ran the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Dr. Donald Berwick emphasized the need for preventive care and practices to improve wellness and to reduce costs. He stated publicly that CMS would be focusing many programs under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 on changing behaviors that lead to bad health practices. His followers in the leadership have continued that charge.

Inner Reach's Health Information Gathering System (HiGS) is an excellent personal tool for individuals to set up their own prevention and wellness program. At the core, HiGS has over 60 Health History categories so the individual can build their own biography of their health and family history. The binary input of HiGS (check Yes or No; check the box) is a simple but elegant interface allowing the user a typing free interface. These biographies can be saved as well as printed to share with health care professionals.

In addition, HiGS has over 180 Health Risk Assessments (HRAs) to give the individual better insight into his or her health risks. Not all 180 HRAs apply to all. Each HiGS user can pick and chose based on their own personalized needs.

HiGS has 9 body systems that allow the user to understand what might be happening when things just don't feel right.

What has this to do with prevention and PPACA? Clearly Obamacare in some form is here to stay. Clearly from their words and actions, CMS officials are focusing on behaviors that can negatively affect an individual's health and associated costs.

By using the tools in the Health Information Gathering System, a person can be prepared for the coming involvement in his or her personal life by the CMS and the PPACA. Persistent stories exist that indicate that the personal physician will be required to ask lifestyle questions that may point to behaviors that the CMS consider counter to good health practices. The requirement for Electronic Medical Records (EMR) will allow databases to be compiled that will track negative behaviors by individuals.

While not endorsing the potential invasion of privacy, Inner Reach does recommend the use of HiGS for self-care to develop a health biography as well as tracking various health risks and signs and symptoms that may indicate problems that need to be addressed.

Go to innerreach.com and higshealth.com for more information.