A Web-based Application To Help Hospitalized Patients: If You Build It, Will They Come?

A Web-Based Application to Help Hospitalized Patients: If You Build It, Will They Come?

Archna Eniasivam, MD^*¹; Jamie Rosenthal¹; Ryan Greysen, MD²; Julie Carpenter, RN¹ and Dr. Steven Ludwin, MD², (1)UCSF, San Francisco, CA, (2)Division of Hospital Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA

Meeting: Hospital Medicine 2016, March 6-9, San Diego, Calif.

Abstract Number: 287

Category: Innovations

Sub-Category: Technology in Hospital Medicine

Keywords:

Background:

Mobile health and health related applications have largely focused on outpatient tools with little development intended for an inpatient setting where the acute need for timely and easy to access information may be greater. An easy to use mobile application for hospitalized patients could meet this need by providing a central repository of information relevant to hospitalization and discharge.

Purpose:

Our aim was to explore the utility and appeal of a web-based application, HospLife, which was developed with a third party vendor to organize the multitude of resources that patients receive and seek out during their hospitalization.

Description:

We introduced HospLife to 18 English-speaking patients hospitalized on a medical floor at a 600 bed academic medical center. We compiled information often provided to patients during hospitalizations and divided it into four content areas, as shown in Figure 1: “On Arrival”, “During My Stay”, “Day of Discharge”, and “Back at Home”. For each content area, we provided additional links and resources, such as maps of the hospital or when to call 911 after discharge.

Patients were surveyed during their hospitalization; the questions were framed around demographics and user experience with HospLife. Since half the content material of HospLife focused on discharge and post-discharge, we then called a subset of patients post-discharge to fully explore those areas, evaluate continued use and elicit general comments.

While in the hospital, the majority of patients agreed the app easy to navigate (73%) and provided useful information (55%). Interestingly, patients rated these aspects even higher after they returned home (83% for both). Similarly, 39% percent of hospitalized patients said they would use the app again whereas 50% of discharged patients felt they would use it again. Most of the comments fell under one of following three themes, as shown in Table 1: personal learning styles (preferences in receiving information verbally, in print or online), feeling connected to providers (wanting to have pictures and ways to communicate with them) and wanting real time information (labs, imaging).

Conclusions:

HospLife was deemed easy to use and generated interest among users. The app’s high levels of intended post- discharge use show promise in meeting needs both during and after discharge. In addition to better integration into current admission processes via nursing coordination and standardization, we plan to incorporate patient comments and feedback into the next version of HospLife.