The CDC reports that nearly 25% of US adults provided (uncompensated) care or assistance to a friend or family member who was aging or with disabilities based on a 2009 study with the number expected to increase as the population ages. Approximately 5.8 million Americans have Alzheimer’s or a form of dementia and that number is expected to rise to 14 million by 2060, according to the CDC. The US Census Bureau reports that 40.8 million US adults are living with a disability (noninstitutionalized.) According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 3 million Americans receive services through states’ Home and Community Based Services Medicaid Waiver program (generally these are for those with the most severe disabilities.)
As more of us assist with aging parents, relatives, family members – how do we assist in managing their daily lives (ie finances, bills, insurance) and honor and respect their wishes (living, medical, death?) Too often families cannot find or don’t have the most updated Advanced Directive or Power of Attorney or never knew the account number and passcode to the bank account. As our primary caregivers age and become disabled, where is all the information they know get stored?
This project is to create a digital filing cabinet or safety deposit box with all the important documents, account numbers, passwords, instructions, and more. This will allow for everything to be backed up in the Cloud, secure, and each piece of information limited access only to those who should have that information. When important information is changed, it only needs to be updated in one place, the digital filing cabinet. This will eliminate people having outdated pieces of paper, as well as prevent information from being lost.
The goal is to eliminate the family fighting in the hospital when it comes to whether an elderly parent or adult with disabilities would want to be removed from life support; to smoothly allow the individual who is identified as the power of attorney for finances to have the documentation, account numbers, and passcodes in order to handle the financial affairs while a loved one is incapacitate; to respect the intents of the decedent having their most recent will available to the executor of the estate, and more. Friends and family members, along with the ill, disabled, and aging will have more time to make memories and enjoy last moments with less stress, less expense (no need for court and attorney fees to remedy), and while respecting the wishes of the individual.
• Document Repository/Digital Filing System: Documents can be uploaded, replaced, deleted, and stored in folders organized by the owner/administrator. All documents and folders will be “locked” and only users with those permissions will be able to access that specific folder and/or document. Documents such as last will and testament, power of attorney, advanced directive, hippaa medical release, life insurance policies, long term care policies
• User login/logout and permissions: This will ensure the protected and private information remains protected and private, with only those who should and need access having permission to access those specific pieces of information they should. (If time, these will be by section)
o Admin: create, edit, delete, view all users and functions, and add new item/form
o Editor: create, edit, delete, view information but not users
o Viewer: view but not make changes to information or users
• Important Information (not documents): There will be several broad sections such as important financial, medical, personal identification, legal, misc. Within each section, account numbers, passcodes, providers and contact information (ie banking institution, mortgage lender, estate planning attorney, financial institution, retirement, annuity, bonds, and investment accounts, pensions, current medications and dosages, pharmacies, SSN, birth certificate, code to safe, where the key to the safety deposit box is, titles to real estate, etc) can be stored, again protected with individual users only having access to what they are uniquely permissioned to access.
• Contact List: next of kin, close family members and trusted friends, providers, and professionals (doctors, pharmacies, attorneys, lawn care/home maintenance, financial advisors, designated POAs, executor of estate, etc.
• Search functionality
• Java • MySQL • Hibernate • Spring Boot • Thymeleaf • Git Hub • Magic Link (low priority)
• Creating user-specific/user unique permissions (*do we need to build a hierarchy and variables within each level or just check boxes for each section or ….) • Creating a database with multiple types of information (ie documents vs user input) • Creating a nice-looking form, determining feature types (drop down menu, check box, free text, etc) • How to create a template that admin can edit • How to upload png, jpg, pdf, & doc