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Connecting Parents to a Pediatric Emergency Department: Designing a Mobile App Based on Patient Centred Care
Frederic Ehrler1, Johan N Siebert2, Jessica Rochat1
1Division of medical information science, University Hospitals of Geneva, Switzerland.
Insights
A new mobile app enhances patient-centered care in pediatric emergency departments (PEDs), improving the experience for families and caregivers. This tool supports parents through decision-making, provides medical information, and offers post-discharge guidance.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Emergency Medicine
- Health Informatics
- Patient Experience Research
Background:
- Patient-centered care shifts focus from disease to patient experience, crucial in pediatric emergency medicine.
- Parents in pediatric emergency departments (PEDs) face stress from child illness, unfamiliar settings, and care delays, impacting their experience and relationships.
- Existing care models can be improved to better support patients and families during stressful healthcare encounters.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify and operationalize improvements for the patient experience in a pediatric emergency department.
- To leverage patient-centered care dimensions to guide the development of a supportive mobile application.
- To enhance the patient-caregiver relationship within the pediatric emergency setting.
Main Methods:
- Exploration of potential areas for patient experience improvement in PEDs.
- Utilizing the dimensions of patient-centered care to structure observations, interviews, and focus groups.
- Translating identified areas for improvement into specific mobile application functionalities.
Main Results:
- A novel mobile application was developed, supporting 7 out of 8 dimensions of a patient-centered care model.
- The app assists parents with decisions regarding PED consultation and manages expectations with relevant medical information.
- The application provides tailored information sheets post-discharge, supporting families throughout their healthcare journey.
Conclusions:
- The developed mobile app represents a significant advancement in improving the patient-caregiver relationship in PEDs.
- Benefits of the app extend to patients, caregivers, and the healthcare institution.
- Enhanced patient-centered care through technology can lead to improved healthcare experiences and outcomes.
Introduction:
Patient centred care fosters a holistic approach of care switching the focus from a disease perspective to a patient's experience perspective. Patient centred care is of particular importance in the context of paediatric emergency medicine. Indeed, parents entering a paediatric emergency department (PED) are usually under stress caused by their children's illness, the unfamiliar setting of the PED and delays of care. All these factors can deteriorate their experience as well as the relationships between healthcare providers, the patients and their parents.
Methods:
We explore potential areas to improve the patient experience during his journey into PED. The dimensions of the picker's patient centred care are used to guide observations, conduct interviews and focus groups. The areas of improvement are then operationalized through their translation into app functionalities.
Results:
Our novel application allows supporting users on 7 of the 8 dimensions of picker's patient centred care model. The app supports parents in their decision-making to consult a PED, it provides relevant medical information to avoid unrealistic expectations and accompany the family after discharge thanks to tailored information sheets about diagnostics.
Conclusion:
Our mobile app allows to make a big step toward the improvement of the patient-caregiver relationship. The direct benefits will be shared by patients and caregivers, as well as the institution.
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