Saving 100 Lives With The Patient Pod

About our project

Imagine that you go to sleep tonight in your bed at home, and wake up tomorrow in a hospital bed. You look around the sterile room. Nothing is familiar and everything is blurry. Where are your glasses? Where is your cell phone? What is wrong with you? How long will you be here? You wish there were someone there with you, someone you loved who could ask all the right questions and get all the right answers. But you know they cannot be here all the time.

Now imagine that you wake up in the hospital bed, and attached to your bed rail is your Patient Pod. Smiling out at you from the cover is a picture of you and your daughter, reminding you that your family is with you even when they can’t be. You flip the cover and discover your wallet, your cell phone, your glasses, your hearing aids, and the notepad on which you’ve written down the developments of your care, the names of your doctors and nurses, and what medications you are on. A new nurse comes in to change your IV. You smile in greeting and ask if she wouldn’t mind sanitizing her hands first, and you are already holding the bottle so that she doesn’t have to turn around and leave the room to push the dispenser on the wall in the hallway. While changing your IV, she notices the picture and asks, “is that your daughter?”

Although remarkably simple, the Patient Pod is a virtual Swiss army knife of tools – designed to help patients become active participants in their care, while reducing the instance of medical error and cutting costs for hospitals. The Patient Pod can improve over 10 quality of care measures.By giving away 100 Patient Pods, I want to save lives and spread the message of patient advocacy.

The Features of Patient Pod

The Patient Pod is a simple, intuitive, affordable, patent-pending tool that clips onto any bed rail. It has many features and functions that include:

• Tips on how to engage with caregivers for the best hospital stay
• Tools for the patient’s hand hygiene and communication.
• A way to give patients a “face” and “identity” (via a photograph insert showing him/her in a healthier, more vibrant time)
• A way to give patients a “voice” (the Pod contains a notepad, pen, and a “message center” to display their questions or special needs).
• A clean, go-to place for personal items and medical handouts (instructions, prescriptions, checklists, discharge info, etc.).

Clinical Proof

• 100% of patients surveyed said they would recommend the Patient Pod to family and friends

• Patient Pod intervention could reduce 30-day readmission rates by as much as 25% (as projected by RI QIO)

The Patient Pod offers a tangible, actionable intervention at the point of care and beyond. Its impact for all stakeholders is positive and powerful. For example, every nurse we surveyed said they would want a Patient Pod for themselves if hospitalized.

The Pod may also be used to enhance the efficacy of the “teach-back” method in order to reduce 30-day readmission rates. The Patient Pod is also a key tool in a recently funded Medicare Innovation project where it will be used to help developmentally challenged patients manage their medical care.

How We Help Patients

• The Patient Pod becomes a “constant” for patients in a quick-paced, rapidly changing care environment. Having a constant increases a patient’s comfort, safety and humanity.
• It is a “constant” for documents, notes and medications through care transitions allowing the patient and their loved ones to stay in control and informed about their health. It is a tool for holding onto dignity, autonomy and control.
• The Patient Pod helps to create instant connections between caregivers and patients, which makes the patient feel known and valued.
• As Sandra Coletta, CEO of Kent Hospital in Warwick, RI (who gave one to her own mother) says: “It’s like bringing a friend to the hospital with you…familiar and comforting, in a place where nothing you touch is yours.”

How We Help Doctors:

In addition to improving care outcomes described below, the Patient Pod is the ultimate tool for accountable care.

• It integrates and provides a go-to place for the patient to store, access and reference PHRs, prescriptions, medications, insurance info, emergency contact info, etc., improving health outcomes, reducing the likelihood of 30-day readmission, and reducing the likelihood of medical harm during care transitions.

How We Help Hospitals, Institutions, and/ or Medical Facilities

For hospitals and medical institutions:

Using the Patient Pod results in happier, healthier, and more engaged patients. It cuts: the risk of “never events” (HAI, patient falls, & re-admission); other costs (replacement of lost patient items like hearing aids and dentures); and it reduces caregiver steps for low-level tasks. The Patient Pod can help improve at least 10 Quality of Care measures.

• See full list of benefits here. If the links we’ve provided above haven’t answered your questions, just contact us for more details.

For Nursing Staff:

• Using the Patient Pod results in less stress for you and happier, more satisfied patients.
• For example: less answering the call button to bring a patient’s personal item closer; less guesswork and variation in fulfilling patient’s needs and preferences; and no more explaining to a distraught patient that his hearing aids or dentures have been misplaced.
• Using Patient Pods increases the capacity for patients to communicate a special need across shift changes by placing/referencing a message in his/her message clip.
• Patient Pods bring more “high-touch” care to the bedside.

How We Help Our Partners:

• In addition to empowering patients, assisting physicians, improving the quality of care and reducing costs as described above, the Patient Pod offers a unique and robust educational, outreach and branding opportunity. Inserts, brochures, vouchers, etc. can carry key messaging right to the bedside, where health care is top-of-mind.
• With the Pod clipped on walkers, wheelchairs, strollers and the backs of airplane seats (yes, they clip here too), your branding is also walking around in the community, where it is sure to prompt conversation and “break through the clutter” of less unique and personal outreach. Your clients will associate your company/brand with being their trusted partner during a medical challenge. You will have helped in the broader mission of helping people survive and thrive in the face of a health challenge. The “partnership” messaging is sincere and powerful.

How We Will Spend Your Contributions:

Funding for The Patient Pod: Save 100 Lives Campaign will cover the costs for the 100 Pods, the shipping and manpower required to manage the project, as well as the supporter rewards described and follow-up.

• The Campaign: Through my network of fellow patient advocates, patient-facing organizations and medical colleagues, we will identify 100 people facing a medical challenge or hospitalization. We will send a Patient Pod to each patient as the need arises and then follow up on their user experiences collecting data to create a report on our product’s efficacy and impact. This report will become available to all our supporters.

• Have a question? If the info above does not help, you can ask the project creator directly.

• Ask a Question Report this project to MedStartr

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