Why do my patients and my care team need ByYourSide™?
Research has shown there are about 4-8 people in a person’s life who are critical to the healing process in a hospital or long-term care facility. We refer to this “support team” as the “ByYourSide™ Circle of Care”. That intimate circle offers daily and moment-by-moment emotional, physical and, more often than not, spiritual support and caring to help a patient heal.
Covid brought to light how isolation contributes to worse health outcomes. Yet patient safety required isolation, especially in skilled
nursing homes and with patients with underlying conditions. ByYourSide™ addresses the needs of isolation and healing with a HIPAA
compliant easy to use ‘Circle of Care’ video communications.
Why did IWT Health decide to create ByYourSide™?
We heard many stories about patients who couldn’t be with their loved ones; about stress on care team members who had to devote their already overtaxed time to gown & ungown, to manage the calls on behalf of patients and loved ones; and the miscommunication when those closest to their patients were not close at hand.
Add to that, social media and videoconferencing systems tend to be stressful and confusing, especially for elderly and debilitated patients.
Moreover, study after study attests that social media significantly contributes to depression when used more than an hour a day.
Screen time also impacts sleep patterns, increasing insomnia and lowering the amount of “deep sleep”. When a patient needs to heal
their body, stress, depression and confusion results in poorer outcomes. So we felt inspired to build a solution to enhance healing and
safety.
What features are in ByYourSide™ that support this “Circle of Care”?
Nurses can “pop in” virtually to check on a patient or family member without having to use limited PPE resources. But let’s be clear, virtual connection cannot replace the face-to-face intimacy of the relationship between the professional care-givers and their patients and family.
We recognize that the care team is responsible for directing the plan-of-care. Part of that is ensuring that the patient is getting the rest they need. They can also see which friends & family are most engaged with the patient. And because the video chats are time-limited and easy to initiate, patient health and safety are optimized.
Authorized loved ones can “pop in” to visit, even if a patient is unable to respond. Care team can easily bring loved ones virtually into conference discussions pertaining to the care of the patient.
ByYourSide does not require a member of the care team to facilitate a session between a patient their loved ones, saving nurses time, and providing patient and loved ones with the ability control when they want to talk.
When linked with IWT’s Healthtrax platform, more patient information is available to patient’s authorized loved ones.
Why shouldn’t patients just use Zoom, or Hangouts or FaceTime?
Those applications can be confusing and difficult to use, particularly for patients who are tech-phobic, elderly or debilitated. ByYourSide™ is much easier to use and limits video chat duration and hours for patient health and safety. Even for patients who can’t interact
with the system, their loved ones can still look in on them and talk to them, offering love and encouragement.
Why don’t we use our Telemedicine platform?
It’s pretty simple. Telemedicine platforms are complex and expensive. We wanted to create a platform that is ultra-simple. Telemedicine has a lot of bells-and-whistles, and rightfully so. Our objective is to make something that is easy to use as those old rotary dial
phones we only see in movies these days. That makes the platform available to everyone, even those who swear they’ll never own one
of those ‘newfangled phone thingamajiggies’.
We already have a patient experience and/or patient engagement and/or patient entertainment
system. What makes ByYourSide™ different?
Many situations occur where a patient is not able to operate video. They are sedated, unconscious, or not comfortable learning a new
technology.
But, can ByYourSide™ operate side-by-side with those devices and applications that our facility
has already invested in?
Of course, and funny you should bring up that term. IWT Health has created a technology partner program called Side-by-SideCaring™ that welcomes the opportunity to work your existing vendors so your applications and devices can work with “ByYourSide™.
By caring for your team and your organization, our goal is to free you so your team and the broader family and friend care team can
create meaningful and rewarding relationships that improve outcomes, and help return your care team to focus on the reasons that
they chose a profession dedicated to caring and healing.
You really seem to get it. Are there ways that I might be able to contribute to your mission of
transforming the ways patients are cared for?
We have developed a core advisory board made up exclusively of patient care practitioners and leaders and patient advocates. Currently, we’ve been very pleased with interest in participating. We are now putting together four focus groups and are asking for contributors in these areas:
- Spiritual care
- Hospitals
Long term care and senior living
- Evidence-based medicine, analytics & patient experience
We will start these virtual groups in the late fall. Initially, we anticipate virtual meetings will be bi-weekly, but that will rapidly move to
monthly meetings as the groups mature.
This is starting to sound like it’s a lot more than just a mobile app.
You’ve got that right. We don’t install this and say, “There, start conferencing.” We help advise you on best practices for orienting your patients and
their loved ones to this process, with creating signage, how to integrate your chaplains and spiritual team, and how to introduce this to the care
teams so the system works for them in the best way possible. ByYourSide can be used to not only to facilitate communication, but to improve your
organization’s brand and perceptions in your community.
Does our hospital have to purchase the ByYourSide™ mobile devices?
Absolutely not. Some hospitals have already purchased bedside tablets. We built the system so that it runs on iPads, iPhones, Samsung
and all the other devices that are widely available on the market. Patients, their ‘care circle’, and your team members can download
the ByYourSide app for your hospital.
Video from 1 Million Cups - Ocala Florida 4/7/21 Introduction and Q/A session.