What we have accomplished in pediatrics?
By Jussi Määttä
Two Finnish University Hospitals’ Children’s Clinics have recently started using the BuddyCare solution. The BuddyCare App is used by parents whose children are scheduled for a hernia procedure done as outpatient basis.
Hello buddies and welcome back to our blog! If it’s your first time here, check out what the BuddyCare app and solution does and how we came up with the idea. Today, let’s talk more about pediatric surgeries and how we’ve helped our customers overcome the challenges they face.
Two Finnish University Hospitals’ Children’s Clinics have recently started using the BuddyCare solution. The BuddyCare App is used by parents whose children are scheduled for a hernia procedure done as outpatient basis. The BuddyCare Dashboard is used by care personnel to monitor patients and the preparation procedures they’re going through. The results have been encouraging:
- Not a single family using the BuddyCare app needed to call or be called by the hospital before the surgery. Care personnel was able to get rid of almost all pre-operative phone calls.
- Care personnel had more time to prepare the patient for the surgery and focus on those patients who had been already admitted to hospital.
- Families that used the BuddyCare app were feeling much more calm when coming to the hospital on the day of surgery. They knew they had prepared according to the instructions, and their stress was relieved.
- The app enabled patients to also participate in their own surgical care. Patients used the app together with their parents to take care of preparation procedures and tasks.
- By using the app, parents were able to send all required forms to the hospital. This resulted in accurate up-to-date answers, which allowed care personnel to know more about the patient before the family arrived to the hospital.
- Once a child got sick just before the procedure at home. The parents reported his condition through the BuddyCare app. Thus, the family didn’t have to drive all the way down to the hospital, and the procedure was rescheduled. Care personnel got the message in advance, and the empty slot was filled with another patient’s procedure. Win-win!
Read more about BuddyCare in action here.
Even though the results look good, we don’t stop on what we’ve achieved. Now we’re working on measuring how BuddyCare affects surgical and medical quality: can hospitals reduce the amount of post-operative complications? Can they shorten the time patients spend at hospital before, during and after surgery? The results will come later, but we already know for sure that there’s a huge potential to transform surgical care and improve old-fashioned hospital processes and communication means with their patients.
What do you think? What would you like to improve with the help of digital health at hospitals and in healthcare in general? Leave your comments below and join the discussion!
Stay tuned for more healthcare insights! Cheers!