Connecting Hearts: The Power of Real-Time Messaging at Bethany Children’s Health Center  

0:00:00.5 Mary Ann Borer: They throw birthday parties, families may not be able to be here. Education makes sure that they are taking photos or video, and they as well get them to the families. 

0:00:18.2 Mary Ann Bore: Hi, I am Mary Ann Borer with HIMSS. Today, I’m joined by Amy Gower, Parent and Family Engagement Communication Specialist at Bethany Children’s Health Center. And Dr. Will O’Connor, Chief Medical Information Officer at Tiger Connect. Our topic is Keeping Families Close; A Spotlight on Bethany Children’s Health Center. Now, before we start, I do want to say thank you to Tiger Connect for sponsoring this podcast. Bethany Children’s Health Center is a leader in the field of pediatric rehabilitation and 24 hour complex care. The hospital offers inpatient and outpatient services for children age 0 to 21, and is the only inpatient pediatric rehabilitation facility in Oklahoma. Their CARF accredited multidisciplinary team works with patients and their families to maximize the patient’s physical and cognitive potential and ensure the family has the training and resources needed for a smooth transition from hospital to home. TigerConnect transforms healthcare with the industry’s most widely adopted clinical collaboration platform, uniquely modernizing how doctors, nurses, care teams, patients, and data connect with a comprehensive range of solutions, including care, communication and patient engagement, scheduling, alarm notifications, nurse call, and more. Tiger Connect enhances efficiency, lowers expenses, and ensures safe, reliable communication. Amy, Dr. O’Connor, thank you both for joining us today. 

0:01:54.6 Amy Gower: Nice To be here. 

0:01:56.4 Dr. Will O’Connor: Thank you for having us. 

0:01:57.9 MB: Amy, let’s start with you. Could you please tell us a little bit about your role and about Bethany Children’s Health Center?  

0:02:02.0 AG: My role is in family and patient engagement. We are a health center that’s a little bit unique in the fact that we have children that stay here 24/7, some on a yearly basis, some on a monthly basis. And so I get to help keep families involved in what their children are actually getting to do here at the hospital. 

0:02:29.6 MB: Fantastic. Could you talk to us a little bit about that importance of communication with parents for some of your long-term patients? 

0:02:37.3 AG: Kind of came about because some of our parents were saying they didn’t quite feel connected, and they didn’t get to see their, the things that happened every day. And because of that, it, I kind of like it to like, if your child’s in a daycare, how families get, real-time photos of what their child is, what they’re getting to play with, their, what they’re learning. Well, this is kind of the same thing, is these families get to see their children participating in therapies in education and fun activities real time. 

0:03:14.2 MB: I can imagine that that must really, help out the parents’ peace of mind when they can’t be there all the time. 

0:03:18.1 AG: Oh, for sure. 

0:03:18.8 MB: Yeah, absolutely. So can you describe some of the communication challenges that your care teams faced before implementing Tiger Connect? And, maybe talk about what led Bethany Children’s to use Tiger Connect for patient engagement. 

0:03:33.8 AG: So we did use that for care teams. Our physicians and our social services use TigerConnect in reaching out for like appointments. My role is more focused on the fun stuff. So whether that’s, prom, which we’re actually going to do this week, they will hear about that, in real time. We had the Savannah Bananas here last week. I’ve already sent multiple pictures to families because not everyone can be here. We have families that not all of them are local. We have some hours away in the state of Oklahoma. We have others out of state. And so, you know, it, it’s hard keeping those families, especially, you know, when they’re hours away. They can’t come even on a weekly basis. And so just to be able for them to lay eyes on their child and see, you know, what they’re doing, it, I think it just totally helped the morale of the families. 

0:04:39.1 MB: That’s wonderful. And you kind of anticipated my next question, which was, how are you using TigerConnect to facilitate the communication between patients and families?  

0:04:48.8 AG: So there are a lot of times that I will, send out mass messages to the families like ahead of time, where it’s just pretty much a message in a graphic, letting them know that, “Hey, prom’s coming up in a month. We would love to have you here if you can make it”. But then I always say at the end, “but if you can’t, no worries, it’s okay. You know that we’ll be there. We’ll take photos, we’ll let you know what happened. You can see your child dressed up.” It’s just, I mean, I get to see so many wonderful, wonderful comments and feedback about using TigerConnect, [laughter], I wish that everybody in the hospital could see all the positive messages that I get from my many families. 

0:05:36.5 MB: That’s great. Now Amy, can you take us to that moment when you first realized that this patient engagement solution was working? Can you tell us what that was like and how the solution really impacts your patients, your families, and your caregivers as well?  

0:05:52.5 AG: There are a lot of moments that I knew it was working, that very, very first was when a great grandmother was the guardian, the caregiver, and she replied back to me to give her great-grandson, lots of love, but she just didn’t say, will you give this to him? She said she, she was actually speaking to him, if that makes sense. Like, “I love you so much, I want you to get better. Know that I think about you every day.” I mean, it just, I mean, it just warmed my heart. You know, her… And then I actually went to the little boy and read this message from his great grandmother. That was probably the very first time, probably another meaningful time, is when I took a photo of a child, sent it to that parent, and she replied back, emojis with tears in her eyes and said, “you don’t know how much this message mean to me. You have made me realize that I made the right decision to put him there for the time being for his therapies” because this particular mom was not, close by and could not make it here every day to see her child. But for her to see the love and care that he was getting here, reinforced her decision that she made the right one. 

0:07:23.9 MB: Wonderful. Can you tell us a little bit about how the solution impacts the caregivers there too? Are they kind of feeling that positivity from the families as well?  

0:07:33.9 AG: Oh, absolutely. Our therapist and our education team is also very involved in this. So all these messages are not just coming from me. Education, very involved in letting their child know what they’re gonna be doing for the month. The week, the day, I can’t be there all the time like the therapist at education can. There may be a time that a child takes their first steps. I may be up at my desk doing something. I don’t know when that child’s gonna take their first steps, but that therapist who’s been working with that child kind of has an idea of what’s going on and maybe recording that child. And so, they are able to send that video or a message to that family, and the family sees the child taking the first steps, just like the therapist did. 

0:08:28.2 AG: Education, same thing. They throw birthday parties, families may not be able to be here. Education makes sure that they are taking photos or video, and they as well get them to the families. It, TigerConnect also allows those families to reply back immediately. So I think it, it’s also reassuring for myself, for therapy, for education, that they get that message back immediately that says, “Thank you so much, love this. Could be more appreciative.” I mean, I could have made a list of all the sweet messages that I get back from families. So I know that education and therapists could do the same thing as well. 

0:09:09.8 MB: Terrific. Now, Amy. Okay. Talk a little bit about any improvements you’ve noticed from using Tiger Connect. You know, sort of improvements in, obviously the family, the patient, and the staff satisfaction as well. 

0:09:24.5 AG: Some of, I think some of those improvements because I try to give the families a heads up well ahead of time. And for example, I’m gonna go back to prom again just because that’s what’s happening this week. A month ago, I sent out a message with a fun little graphic that our graphics department made, let them know what was happening in a month. And that way that family, if they choose to come or can come, they can actually mark it on their calendars, take off. Because as we all know, if we work, we can’t always just leave our job at the drop of a hat. But getting them plenty of notice about the events that are coming up or that are taking place. It gives them time to put it on their calendars. So where they can take off and they can be here and also listen, pick and choose. Like, I would really love to come to this activity, can’t come to that activity. You know, they can plan their schedules around how we communicate with them. I’ve had one mother in particular who is very much a planner, has given TigerConnect kudos and kudos and kudos. I mean, she is constantly saying, thank you so much, love that. I’m aware of what’s going on well before it happens. Thank you for letting me know. Yeah, it has just been a huge improvement I think in our family and our staff morale, both. 

0:10:50.6 MB: Fantastic. Dr. O’Connor, I’ve got a few questions for you as well. 

0:10:55.1 DO: Sure. 

0:10:55.9 MB: Can you tell us how TigerConnect is helping healthcare organizations integrate patients and their families into that information flow about their own care?  

0:11:08.9 DO: You know, I think Amy answered that question really well with all the examples she just gave and the way we’re doing that, the way we’re enabling that is having a unified platform where staff providers, all the caregivers and patients are all connecting on the same platform. So anyone that is part of that patient care team can interact with anyone in that patient’s care team as well. Their family, their friends, who whoever is appropriate to be interacting with. And, you know, as you heard Amy say, it makes for an amazing experience, for the patient and for their families. A lot of times people think of patient engagement just as passing along, tactical, information with the patient things, questions about medications, things like that. But you heard Amy talk about so well, you know, a patient’s first steps, prom, they were able to put on, birthday parties. Having patients and caregivers all on one unified platform allows these types of interactions to happen because conversations can take place, one-on-one, there can be group, collaboration, and it’s very easy, using this type of platform for everyone to connect. 

0:12:41.0 MB: I see. Now, can you talk to us about what some of the communication challenges are that affect patient engagement and how those challenges can impact the overall patient experience?  

0:12:55.2 DO: Yeah, it’s a great question and I think we’ve all experienced what bad is. I think patient portals have their place, in terms of being able to make appointments and look up results and things like that, but for real time communication, for communicating about the types of things that Amy has been talking about, having it real time, regardless of if the patient is in the hospital or if they’re a thousand miles away where they live. It really doesn’t matter when you’re using something like TigerConnect. So that’s been a blocker in the past is when you don’t have this type of solution that includes everyone and isn’t in real time, that’s where people start getting stuck and they don’t feel like they’re being included and they don’t feel like they’re being, updated. So it’s got to be simple, it’s got to be inclusive. It also has to be app free. You can’t have people downloading an app. You’ve gotta be able to keep it simple and just be able to include people, by way of having their phone number. 

0:14:02.6 MB: Absolutely. Dr. O’Connor, could you maybe describe some of the benefits that healthcare organizations and the patients can experience from adopting some of these patient engagement solutions?  

0:14:13.5 DO: First, it’s a patient satisfier. You’re getting the families involved. They’re staying updated. And again, not with just tactical things related to just what is going on with the patient, and medications or other things with their care, but all the other things that are happening in between giving that sense of connection no matter where anyone is, no matter where the person is, is invaluable to the patient. And it creates such an aura of positivity around that patient’s care. It’s palpable and you heard Amy talk about it and that’s exactly what we’re seeing everywhere we install this. It is a huge patient satisfier. And I think because of that, it’s a caregiver satisfier as well. The staff is super happy when we install this because it allows them to connect with families and connect with patients, in a way that improves their quality of care and improves their experience. And that’s what every caregiver is after is trying to do a really, really good job and render excellent care. And this type of technology, allows them to do that. And, you know, it also improves safety and quality. Being able to plan with a family around a patient’s discharge results in a higher quality discharge. It results in better outcomes, it results in less readmissions. And it’s the type of thing that we’re seeing more and more as you connect with patients in a more meaningful way. 

0:15:56.3 MB: Fantastic. I can only imagine that it would be a staff satisfier in that, you know, sometimes you used to be, when you had a loved one in the hospital, you’d have to, you know, call the nurses station and see how they were doing. And I can, that must be, it must be so much easier to be able to just find, you know, find out in real time what’s going on. 

0:16:15.0 DO: Yeah. 

0:16:17.3 MB: Amy, Dr. O’Connor, thank you both so much for joining us today and for your insights. 

0:16:24.1 DO: Thanks Maryanne. Thanks, Amy. 

0:16:24.2 AG: Yeah no, Thank you. 

0:16:25.7 MB: And of course, special thanks to TigerConnect for sponsoring this podcast. Have a fantastic rest of your day.