Sophie – Reducing Hospital Stay

Stays in acute hospitals can be long and the outcome for people with a learning disability can be poor. 

In addition to a learning disability, Sophie has a physical disability meaning she has to be in a specific position to eat and drink. Her learning disability comes with a few challenges but one day Sophie has a pain in her lower back. By the time she sees her GP her back pain leads to an emergency admission to hospital with a possible renal problem. 

Sophie has been on the ward for a day before her key worker has been able to visit with her computer tablet that has Hear Me Now (HMN) on it. In the first 24 hours on the ward, the acute hospital nurse has been unable to get Sophie to eat or drink, which is not good for Sophie and certainly is not helping her kidney problem. 

HMN has a feature called “About Me” where individuals can enter all the key information that somebody providing care needs to have available to them – the data included in the feature can be text, photos, audio, video and web links. It includes demographic information as well as lots of information people should know about Sophie. For Sophie this includes the best ways to make her happy and the best position she should be in to eat and drink. Sophie loves using video as it captures her positional needs and the best way to help her get into the best position. The feature complies with the About Me information standard from the Professional Records Standards Body (PRSB). 

Sophie and her key worker shows her About Me information to the acute hospital nurse who now realises that the position she has been getting Sophie into at mealtimes and to drink has not been right for Sophie. Now the nurse realises that what she was previously doing to help Sophie was not the best thing for Sophie. Sophie was delighted to be in the right position to eat and drink. The hospital could now proceed with the tests to diagnose Sophie’s problem and commence treatment. Two days later Sophie was discharged home. 

Using HMN allowed Sophie to achieve a better outcome from her care more quickly, enabling the staff on the acute ward to diagnose and treat her as soon as the About Me information was shown to them. For the acute hospital, what was starting to look like a long length of stay and possibly a poor outcome changed, using HMN. Sophie’s length of stay was the average for the ward and the outcome was good. The nurse has improved their knowledge and skill. 

HMN enables better quality of care, better outcomes and improves efficiency in acute care.