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Today in health it, the story is a cool use case in the nicu. My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week in health. It. I channel dedicated to keeping Health IT staff current and engaged. Next Thursday, July 15th at 1:00 PM Eastern Time, I'm doing a webinar and I'd love to have you there.
We will be taking questions for about 20 minutes. So as I do on the show, I'm gonna try to facilitate a discussion more than just a talking head presentation, although I will be doing that for about . Uh, 30 minutes. We're going to be taking the interviews that I've done and the stories we've covered, and knitting together a story around what is going on in health it and what we can expect next.
And I would love for you to join me. You can sign up today at this week, health.com/. Register, you can sign up and have your team sign up and then you guys can talk about it. I want to thank everybody who sent me notes. This was my first hurricane in South Florida and I have really nothing to report.
Lots of rain, but very little wind and we never lost power, so I'm not sure this counts as my first hurricane. At least that's what my neighbors are telling me. Either way, thanks for the kind notes. Today's story is a feel good technology story sometimes. I just wanna talk about solutions that are working, solutions that have happy parents or patients and happy clinicians, and that's what we have today.
Sparrow Hospital in Michigan rolled out an app to keep newborn parents connected and, and this is a little different than what we did in Southern California, and that's why I pulled this one out because it has some nuance to it that I really like. I'm getting this story from Modern Healthcare. So Casey and Ben Wheeler can't always be bedside at Sparrow Hospital's neonatal intensive care unit in Lansing, Michigan with their newborn son Dax.
When they're not able to sit next to him and touch him through the slots and his incubator, nurses in the unit make sure that the wheelers get the information they need. Sparrow's NICU recently began using EASE E-A-S-E-A smartphone app to keep parents connected and updated on their newborn's health and progress.
According to the Lansing State Journal, DAX was born nine weeks early on June 11th. Casey Wheeler said he's still on A-C-P-A-P machine, but his eating has improved. He's doing great. She said. NICU Department manager Sarah Collins said Each baby in the unit has an iPad at its bedside. With the EASE app installed, staff can log into the app and take pictures, send text updates, or live chat with parents.
Parents who've installed the app on their phone can choose to add family members. Or friends who will get direct updates. It just helps with communications. Collins said the staff using the EASE app can document major steps in the baby's progress, like their first bath, their first bottle coming off the CPAP machine, or changes in their condition.
Collins said just last week, nurses sent 258 messages to parents. Of 38 babies in the unit. Ben Wheeler said they live only a short drive away in South Lansing and can visit Dax a couple times each day for a few hours at a time. We still appreciate the app updates we get. He said Ben Wheeler said he looks forward to waking up and getting the latest news from the nicu.
It's just reassuring the app has proved to be helpful for parents who can't be at the hospital at all times, whether they have a job or need to care for other children. Collin said the app also fills a void. Four family members who can't visit . The babies in the nicu. The reason I like this is we did something with video and they talked about this.
Sparrow's NICU previously tried a video system that was set up over the baby's bed, and that's similar to what we were doing, but it didn't provide any context as to how the baby was doing. Colin said, and I think that's key that the context, the back and forth with the nurse. And the nurses putting it into contact nurses or whoever is at the bedside.
Putting it into context for the parents, I think helps. I also like the aspect of connecting in the family members. I think that's a really cool aspect as well. The IT project coordinator in this hospital talks about the fact that they're piloting it here and they're going to take it to other locations.
So I like this. I, I like this story. I like this solution. I think it's pretty elegant and pretty simple. My so up for today is when you have solutions like this that are working, shout it from the rooftops, let everyone know they will know when things go wrong. So you have to make them aware when things go well.
Internal marketing is a thing and you should be good at it. Marketing is not a way to spin things, but a way to get the word out. It's not a substitute for good execution and excellent solutions, but it also cannot be ignored. Tout your successes, your system and your community need to know. In fact, if you have a solution that's working for you, shoot me a note at Bill at this week in health it.com.
I wanna know about it and I may even discuss it on the show. That's all for today. Don't forget to sign up for our webinar this week, health.com/register. I'm looking forward to seeing you there. If you know of someone that might benefit from our channel, please forward them a note. They can subscribe on our website this week, health.com, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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