Health is Wealth

By Posted in - Uncategorized on September 14th, 2013 0 Comments

Benessere, a non-profit entity, had its inspiration emerge on a trip to an outskirt village in Cambodia where co-chairman/CEO Travis Muhlestein visited several rural families on an outreach program. The state of impoverishment deeply affected Travis and sparked the question, how do we educate the global community on sustainable health and wellness? Could it become more effective through the technology that was emerging every day? Considering this and with the assistance of his brother/co-chairman Brett Muhlestein Benessere was later founded in early 2013.

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Benessere’s vision is to educate the global community on sustainable health/wellness, with a mission to challenge traditional patient episodic care by focusing on proactive “personalized health wisdom.” The next question for Benessere was how/where to create impact. Hence, Travis and Brett became interested in the opportunities presented by Global Brigades and the impact an alliance between the two organizations could make.  Global Brigades, a non-profit, is the world’s largest student-led global health and sustainable development organization that focuses in areas such as Honduras, Panama, Nicaragua and Ghana. The following story highlights how and why these organizations have partnered together:

The World Bank classifies the West African nation of Ghana as a middle-income country. It is often held up as a model to other African countries for its political stability and economic growth. Still, 27% of the population lives in extreme poverty ($1.25 per day). This poverty limits access to economic and health opportunities.

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Currently, Global Brigades (GB) is working in the Ekumfi District of Ghana, where most of the population lives in under-resourced communities. Since 2011, GB has worked with these communities to provide medical services through a series of volunteer teams from Europe and North America. Together, the volunteer teams have been impacting 10,000-15,000 patients each year through mobile clinics in this remote region.

That’s where we met Prince, age 6, and his mother, Mary. When GB’s medical teams examined him, they discovered that he was mute and suffered from a respiratory disease. Prince was placed in our patient-referral program and special funds were raised to take him to a specialist. Global Brigades discovered that he had pulmonary tuberculosis—a serious, but treatable disease. Through the support of GB’s medical teams, Prince was able to receive treatment. Mary said Prince has been doing much better since the treatment. “We don’t have much,” she said, “but health is wealth to us right now.” He has a long road ahead to recovery, but Global Brigades is prepared to walk with him and his mother every step of the way.

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Prince’s case is not an isolated one. Through the alliance between Benessere and Global Brigades, GB is moving all of their patient records to a cloud computing environment in Ghana and will soon begin the important task of analyzing all the data for critical trends health, such as a prevalence of respiratory disease, so they can prevent cases from getting serious as Prince’s situation.

Benessere’s technology/service research targets a digital health experience for the global community with the goal of enabling health monitors that record physical and physiological characteristics in health services. The result is that individuals, like Prince, receive “real-time” personal health recommendations over time that results in improved health and wellness results for life.

We invite you to join Benessere and Global Brigades, to change the world of health, one community and one person at a time.

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