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Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Patient Journal App Now Available, Created for You by the Josie King Foundation













I am so happy to make this wonderful announcement- The Josie King Foundation presents the Patient Journal App, a tool for your iPhone that you can use to record important information related to a hospital stay. Please take your iPhone out of your pocket and go to the Apple iTunes Store. Search for "Patient Journal" or "Josie King" and there it is. (You can also go directly to the app via this link: http://itunes.com/apps/PatientJournal.) You will recognize the pretty Josie King Foundation logo. Go ahead and download it. It's completely free.

Let me tell you a few things about this most wonderful Patient Journal app, which is based on our successful Care Journal. So, there you are in the hospital. You, your child or a loved one is sick. You are scared and confused. You may feel a bit powerless until you whip out your beloved iPhone and click on that pretty little leaf and up pops your Patient Journal.

Each day your Patient Journal prompts you to type in important information like:
-Parking Place: If you are a hospital visitor like me, you are always forgetting where you parked your car in that huge parking lot. Noting it in your Patient Journal app means you have one less thing to remember.
-Medical Team on Duty: Doctors, nurses, aides, therapists- they are all vital members of the medical team. It is nice to remember their names.
-Daily Goals: The medical team has daily goals for their patients (like keeping blood potassium at a certain level or walking ten laps around the ward, for example) and we should be aware of them and do what we can to help.
-Medications: It is important to know what those meds do and what the potential side effects may be.
-Procedures: What is the procedure for? Why did the doctor recommend it? Don't forget to ask for the results.
-Diet: It is a good idea to record what liquids and foods the patient is taking. Some patients need to drink a certain amount of water daily, or slowly work up to eating solids after surgery.
-Questions to Ask: I really like this one. This is where you note the questions that you have for your medical team. It is easy to refer back to this list when the doctors and nurses make their rounds. No worries about forgetting the important questions.

Each day you will keep all of this very important information tucked away safe and sound in your pocket. What could be easier?

Now here is what I REALLY like about the fabulous Patient Journal app. Your husband is out of town and asks you how things are going and instead of having to remember each procedure, each medication, each doctor and nurse (because you are so tired) all you do is whip out your iPhone, open your Patient Journal, enter his email address, and push "send".

Maybe your family physician wants to know how the patient is doing, so you enter her address and push "send". Maybe you want to talk to a specialist on the other side of the country; enter the email address and push "send". Basically, you hae created your own set of informal medical records.

So to all of the Josie King Foundation friends, to all of Josie's Story friends, to all of my friends and family...well, really to EVERYONE who will every be in the hospital please, please, PLEASE use the Patient Journal app. It is a gift from us to you. We hope you like it as much as we do. Please send us your thoughts and comments. Email us at app@josieking.org.

Your friend (who is VERY excited about this project),
Sorrel

P.S.- Many thanks to the super smart team at Spinapse, the terrific software development company that worked with us to make the Patient Journal such a smart, easy-to-use, helpful app.

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posted by JosieKingFoundation @ 7:29 PM  

3 Comments:

  • At September 8, 2010 at 9:46 PM , Anonymous Donna Cusano said...

    Sorrel,

    As Editor North America for Telecare Aware, I'm pleased to be covering this on our website (www.telecareaware.com). You will be reaching primarily an industry audience with this, but perhaps your story will be picked up more widely with our feeds.

    You should also provide this as a Android and BlackBerry app for those who have these smartphones.

    I think this is good not only for hospitals but for those with loved ones in rehab or LTC.

    Good luck!

    Donna Cusano

     

  • At September 10, 2010 at 11:23 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

    Dear Donna,

    Thank you so much for helping to get the word out there. We have been getting some great, very positive feedback on the app. We are moving in that direction--development of Patient Journal App for Android and Blackberry. I agree, it needs to be more widely available. We are working on some funding for those projects and I will for sure let you know when it all comes through.

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts,

    Sorrel

     

  • At September 25, 2010 at 10:09 PM , Blogger carmen2u said...

    I am impressed! I'll be downloading this app to test it out (though not a patient), just to see what it can do. Your description of its functionality showcases a terrific product. This is PHI at the local patient-level, geared for patient needs. Great idea!

     

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