Image by Takeda-art
Image by Takeda-art
Genki is Japanese for "Healthy." So GenkiGuide literally means "Healthy Guide!"
“Genki” is a Japanese word representing the source of well-being and energy, the flow of one’s inner universe. GenkiGuide is a website created to help inform individuals about basic preventive healthcare based on their personal characteristics. It pulls evidence-based recommendations from sites like the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the American Cancer Society (ACS) to provide personalized recommendations for you based on your personal information. Please bookmark GenkiGuide and share with friends and family. The site is entirely free to everyone and is not for profit, so your information will always be kept private and never sold or distributed.
We are in a healthcare crisis. The lack of insurance coverage and physicians with an unmanageable number of patients means patients are often left to their own devices to manage their healthcare. According to the United States Census, 27.5 million people did not have healthcare insurance in 2018. This number increased from 25.6 million in 2016. In a 2012 article in the Annals of Family Medicine, it was noted that the average primary-care physician had about 2,300 patients. That number has risen over time with a growing and aging population. The Association of America Medical Colleges predicts a shortage of nearly 122,000 physicians by 2032. With a lack of physician availability, people need to take control of their own health and have the knowledge they need to manage basic preventive care. In addition, they need to know what to ask for when they see their primary care providers. While this in no way replaces the comprehensive care a physician could provide, it gives everyone the ability to see applicable guideline recommendations based on their individual characteristics. If everyone could at least seek basic preventive care, the community’s overall health would be better, and we could avoid costly missed or late diagnoses.
High-grade preventive health recommendations were pulled from the websites of established organizations like the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) and the American Cancer Society (ACS). Immunization recommendations were pulled from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website. The recommendations are grade A or B, which means the recommendations are strong and based on evidence.
More information about grades are here
GenkiGuide uses a questionnaire to determine your individual characteristics that trigger guideline recommendations. The logic and criteria within the recommendations were programmed in, so they display based on your answers to the questionnaire. Remember that this does not replace a primary care physician and should never replace physician-directed care. Guidelines change based on risk factors, so while this tool helps inform you, you should always consult with your primary care physician to make sure the recommendations are applicable to you.
GenkiGuide provides a checklist of “to-do” items for preventive care based on your individual characteristics. The checklist saves on to your profile and can be seen any time by logging back in. As you complete each item, you can put in a completion date to move it to the “completed” list. In addition, for recommendations that you want to make active again, you can put in a “make active again” date, which makes it reappear on your to-do list on that date. This functionality is beneficial to keep track of recurring tests. For example, suppose you complete a mammogram but want the system to remind you to do this again in two years. In that case, you can set a re-activate date for two years from now, and the guide can email you to remind you that this recommendation is active again on the date you requested. Thus, GenkiGuide can act as your personal assistant to keep track of recurring tests. You will also be able to create custom reminders for items not covered in the standard recommendations (i.e., your physician recommends a follow-up ultrasound in 6 months to monitor an aneurysm). Some of these features are available to patients who have insurance receiving care at large organizations with advanced electronic health records, but they are not available to those who are not insured or those patients seen in small offices which can not afford multi-million dollar systems. The hope is that this guide becomes a tool to help keep people healthy, supporting their “Genki” through simple and free reminders.
GenkiGuide was created with the sole purpose of providing individuals personalized healthcare information to help them take care of themselves. It is 100% free of advertising and is provided free of cost to those who wish to use it. To the best of our ability, we keep all information private and secure and will never distribute or sell any data stored on this site. We provide an option to take the questionnaire anonymously so folks can take advantage of the personalized recommendations. The site will never send emails to you except for email authentication (when creating a profile) and if you opt in for email reminders when new recommendations become active based on your profile. The site will never spam you with any other emails. We will keep every effort to maintain the accuracy of the recommendations based on the organizations we follow so all members with profiles can be notified if they opt in for email notification when new recommendations become active for them, or if they have chosen to reactivate a recommendation that was previously completed for a future date (i.e. a mammogram reminder). We sincerely hope that this site helps folks who may not have access to good healthcare, and they can use the information provided on this website to seek out appropriate medical care. The information here is not meant to replace or supersede any other healthcare, and users still need to seek appropriate medical attention for their health. This is simply meant to inform so that users can be better prepared for their doctor visits.