7A: Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

The Beginning Steps of a Hypothesis

The Opportunity: After a bit of thought, I realized that the best opportunities start to help a problem in the present and become a pillar for solutions in the future. To put my opportunity into a statement best: "Nursing homes and care-wards are unable to provide the adequate care necessitated by the physical and mental limitations of the elderly as a result of the insurance policies of corporate run hospice/nursing homes."

• The Who: Nursing homes and care-wards.
• The What: Ineffective care for aging Americans.
• The Why: Insurance policies of for profit nursing homes.

Testing the Hypothesis:

• The Who: By extension of the problem, the "who" also includes the elderly who need to be placed into assisted living. 
• The What: I would wager that any patient in a nursing home faces the issues of inadequate care at the hands of programs that can be provided by the home itself, or by the staff. 
• The Why: One of the many "whys" for the failures of nursing homes is their payment policies relating to an absurd monthly price-point for the purpose of covering all patients care plans, while in reality they take those insane profit margins and do the bare minimum under contract to keep their customers healthy. But this "why" isn't exclusive to the for profit insurance policies specific to elder care, but also the training provided to the nurses / staff being insufficient to help these patients when they might be under duress or suffering from something.

Interviews:

In each interview I read the opportunity statement off, and after giving opinions on it I ask numerous questions relating to the who, what and why.

•  Interview #1
• "I think it's a well thought out idea, especially when you consider the aging boomer population getting older and with the younger generations dealing with a market left in turmoil cheaper and better care for seniors is going to be a must. Your who definitely seems on the money but the why seems a bit shaky, as I think there might be larger problems that go into contributing to the what."
• Interview #2
• "Seems like a fairly generational problem, but there is room to make a business opportunity around a reform like this. I think the who should include more than just nursing homes, but also the patients affected, and on a side note I feel that there really is no easy solution to this."
• Interview #3
• "This seems like a very eery problem, as in one that is going to sneak up on a lot of people in the later walks of life. I can say for certain I want to be cared for better than what a lot of those elderly get at those homes. The Who and What seem pretty good, but the why could also be in part to the lack of competition major nursing home companies lack."
• Interview #4
• "The opportunity is there but I don't have much firsthand experience with it as my family never used one of these care services before. As for the who though, I think it's not as cut and dry as you make it out to be. I think the profit margins for a better care systems would be weaker depending on just how many elderly in the next generations need this service."
• Interview #5
• "Altogether seems like a venture that could yield quite well assuming the solution to each of your why's isn't as monumentally difficult as it looks to be on paper. Making a better care system seems like the solution to go for when you mentioned your What, but tackling it at such a broad scope seems pretty difficult to go on.

Reflection: I feel like after going through the interviews that the opportunity surely exists, but it would take quite a while to make a thorough solution and on top of that, it would seem extremely difficult to draft the resources to make one. All in all it definitely exists, but to make a full blown solution work well it seems a tad out of reach.