Maintaining Connections with Your Discharged Patients

Have you ever wondered how your patients are coping at home after hospital discharge?

Are they taking their medications as prescribed? Meeting the functional goals you set for them? Are they eating, staying hydrated, and able to sleep? What are their pain scores?With our busy schedules, it is often difficult for us to understand all of what is happening despite a telephone call with the patient to check in.

Helping patients understand the various factors that are associated with their healing and return to function after a surgical procedure, physical trauma, or medical condition can be challenging. And maintaining connections with patients once they are discharged from the hospital is an important part of a solid patient-physician relationship, demonstrating that you are committed to the patient's well-being. It can also impact their ability to recover from a health situation. This continuity of care can also make you aware of a condition before it becomes a bigger problem, allowing you to intervene before the situation worsens.

Keeping track of medication use is important for physicians to understand how the patient is recovering from the procedure or medical condition. Until now an app to record this information in a reliable and sharable format was not available. The Sprout Care app is customizable for every individual (even those who have not been hospitalized!) and allows insights as to how different factors are related and impact return to function and well-being.

Let's Take A Look At Some Of The Features

Start on the Schedule screen to document the medications or activities of interest.

There is no limit as to what one can choose to chart; customizable free texts give you flexibility

Here are some suggestions...

- medications

- vital signs (temperature, blood pressure, heart

rate, pain level)

- physical activity (i.e., a certain number of steps

per day / get up out of bed to a chair 4 times daily

- intellectual activity (i.e., reading, homework,

mind puzzles)

- distraction techniques (crafts, chat with friends)

- sleep activities (wake time and sleep time)

- medical provider appointments / tests

Be creative and think of your own!

For a given time frame, view the medications and activities that are scheduled. Simply check the box to document completion of the task or medication administration. Leaving the box blank indicates the task was not completed or medication not taken. This provides important information to the health care provider as adherence to the plan is measured intuitively.

Improve your tracking of medication use. Rather than relying on a Post-it note on the kitchen counter, take advantage of an easy-to-use platform available anywhere.

Only the Sprout app allows you to create customizable views to better understand the association between pain medication use and the pain score over time, or any variables you would like to compare. Provides important insight to the health care provider as well as valuable information to reassure patients.

A separate screen for Dr. Visits allows one to see all upcoming appointments and tests that are to be completed once they are entered into the app.

Information can be summarized in a Health Log that will document all completed activities and medications taken for a given day. These reports can be sent in a .pdf form to the individual of your choice. Family members and healthcare providers can be kept updated as to progress as appropriate.

In addition, built-in Siri Shortcuts are in place to allow one to readily chart an activity.

Adherence to scheduled tasks can be tracked in a variety of formats ranging from daily through annually on the Summary screen.

Sprout Care apps is dedicated to your wellness and health. I have been thoroughly impressed with their attention to detail and the applicability of such a platform with regard to recovering from a surgical procedure, a physical trauma, or medical conditions. I believe the consistent use of an app like Sprout Care will have a significant impact on our ability to understand our patients.

https://sprout-apps.com/sprout-care-iphone-app/

Check them out today on the app store and provide some feedback here as to your experience. We'd love to hear from you.

N.B. The contents herein are my personal opinion. I received no compensation financial or otherwise for this post.