Participatient is a
smartphone app to involve
patients
A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other healt ...
in decision making during their hospital stay. The app was created as an academic project in the Netherland to use
eHealth as a tool to stimulate patient engagement. This project started at the Dutch
Hacking Health (DHH) and won the 2016 DHH award for best eHealth innovation, under the name 'Bedpartner'.
The Participatient app has modules with information on the ward and the admission,
pain medication
An analgesic drug, also called simply an analgesic, antalgic, pain reliever, or painkiller, is any member of the group of drugs used for pain management. Analgesics are conceptually distinct from anesthetics, which temporarily reduce, and in so ...
, and urinary
catheter
In medicine, a catheter ( ) is a thin tubing (material), tube made from medical grade materials serving a broad range of functions. Catheters are medical devices that can be inserted in the body to treat diseases or perform a surgical procedure. ...
use, with the goal to stimulate
patient participation
Patient participation is a trend that arose in answer to medical paternalism. Informed consent is a process where patients make decisions informed by the advice of medical professionals.
In recent years, the term ''patient participation'' has be ...
and make the hospital stay safer and more pleasant. The app is designed to encourage communication and awareness in patients and medical staff. This was be evaluated in the PECCA project (Patient Engagement Counter CAUTI with an App),
supported by the Netherlands organisation for health research and development (ZonMw).
In the PECCA study,
urinary tract infections
A urinary tract infection (UTI) is an infection that affects a part of the urinary tract. Lower urinary tract infections may involve the bladder (cystitis) or urethra ( urethritis) while upper urinary tract infections affect the kidney (pye ...
significantly decreased after the implementation of patient-centred app, together with clinical lessons, feedback via e-mails and support rounds for staff members. Although, the project did not significantly reduce the prevalence of inappropriate urinary catheter use. However, the inappropriate catheter reduction of 5.8% and an odds ratio of 0.27 suggest a positive trend. Patient participation appears to reduce CAUTI and could reduce other healthcare-associated infections.
Participatient is one of the founding projects of the Dutch National eHealth Living Lab (NeLL).
References
External links
*{{official website, https://participatient.eu/
Healthcare in the Netherlands
Health informatics