Case Study

Griffin Health

At Griffin Health, the Post-ICU digital diary has been implemented as part of their holistic approach to healthcare and as part of their vision on person-centered care. This Case Study examines the challenges Griffin faced and how we overcame them in collaboration.

Introduction

Griffin Health, striving to be the pioneer in person-centered care, faced an ambitious challenge: to extend their person-centered care approach to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). In the context of life-threatening situations, the emphasis in the ICU often revolves around immediate medical interventions and monitoring vital signs. This may lead to a reduced emphasis on the human aspects of care. But that did not suit Griffin at all.

Griffin wants to provide person-centered, compassionate care. In their aspiration to abide by the guidelines from the Society of Critical Care Medicine’s (SCCM) ICU Liberation Bundle, they found it challenging to implement Family Engagement in a meaningful way. Although the SCCM labels Family Engagement as crucial, there isn’t a lot of practical guidance available on how to realize it.

The solution

Enter our innovative solution: the Post-ICU digital diary Griffin recognized its potential to transform patient care and family engagement within the ICU setting. However, as with any new leading-edge solution, they had questions and concerns.

This case study examines three key challenges Griffin Health faced and reveals how we overcame them together.

“Diaries are a proven and cost-effective intervention for decreasing depression, anxiety, and PTSD”

Challenges

Griffin Health faced the following challenges:

  • ICU Staff’s Limited Time: Does keeping an ICU diary add extra workload?
  • Addressing Data Liability: How to address concerns regarding liability associated with the diary’s content?
  • Navigating consent: How to effectively manage the process of obtaining consent from patients and their families to use the Post-ICU digital diary?

How we solved those challenges?

ICU staff’s limited time: Saving time, not spending it

How does the Post-ICU digital diary save professional caregivers time?

  • Flexibility: caregivers can choose suitable moments to write, during less hectic periods. The automatic structuring of the Post-ICU diary even enables ICU staff to write about events that happened a couple of days ago, maintaining the chronological integrity of the information
  • User-friendly interface: On average, an ICU nurse spends a mere 3 minutes to make an entry in the digital diary. The intuitive design empowers caregivers to efficiently capture and communicate the patient’s story.
  • Writing suggestions: caregivers can write meaningful entries effortlessly, without prolonged deliberation. Not sure what to write about? Post-ICU offers inspiring writing suggestions.

Griffin now agrees that Post-ICU wasn’t only able to address the initial apprehension, but rather emerged as a time-saving asset within their demanding ICU environment.

Addressing data liability: ICU diaries minimize litigation risk

The challenge of how to handle liability is a very understandable question, which has fortunately already been answered many times. And not just by our own experts, but also by independent scientific studies.

For example, Cazares-Machado et al. (2017) found several effective ways to minimize litigation claims when using ICU diaries. Two of them we would like to point out:

  • Engaging the ICU patient and family in their care
  • Communicating clearly with patients and their loved ones to enhance transparency and trust-building

 
Another way we work to minimize litigation risk can be found in our training sessions. When we implement Post-ICU in a new hospital, training sessions are an essential part of the implementation.

Navigating consent: have people give consent in multiple ways


The data that is entered and saved in the Post-ICU diary are very sensitive. It makes sense that consent needs to be handled carefully. That is why the Post-ICU diary manages consent on two levels:

  • Physically: our trademark orange envelope bundles all the information and documents that the ICU patient and their family will need to get started with Post-ICU. This envelope includes a consent form that the patient or their legal guardian signs.
  • Digitally: the patient or their legal guardian has to confirm in the Post-ICU app that they have signed the consent form, agree to the privacy conditions and accept the terms of use.

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