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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.
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The ICU team of Griffin Health, showing the Post-ICU envelope and t-shirts.

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.

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.

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?

Post-ICU's results at Griffin:

saves caregivers time

minimizes litigation risk

effectively manages consent

Discover how Post-ICU solved Griffin's challenges

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

Faced with concerns about the potential time commitment from ICU staff, Griffin discovered that integrating our Post-ICU digital diary into their workflow not only proved to be time-efficient but even contributed to a streamlined care delivery.

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 a number of 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

The Post-ICU diary offers the perfect way to apply both of these insights: engaging the ICU patient and family in their care, and communicating clearly and transparently. The mere act of keeping the diary together with the family enhances communication and will make the family more involved in the care for their loved one.

"Griffin adopted this innovative care tool, Post-ICU, as part of its longstanding commitment to delivering Planetree person-centered care, an approach to healthcare that produces superior patient care and a humanized health care experience that emphasizes compassion, equity, and the active participation of patients and their families."
Patrick Charmel, President, CEOGriffin Health, Derby, CT
Patrick Charmel, President, CEO
“The Post-ICU diary is aligned to what our mission is, because it does support the patient’s recovery, experience, preferences and needs during their stay within the ICU, but also connects and supports important supporting pieces like family, visitors and staff as well.”
Michael Giuliano, COOPlanetree International
michael giuliano
"Post-ICU decreases the incidence of PTSD, as well as PICS and its accompanying disorder, PICS-Family."
Marya Chaisson, MDGriffin Health, Derby, CT
Marya Chaisson, MD
“Post-ICU has helped staff as well. We’re able to look back at all of the previous journal entries, just to kind of see what other caregivers have written in the diary. And, honestly, it’s nice for staff too because they are able to see the progress that the patient has made through their ICU journey as well. And it’s a nice reflection for the family.”
Ashley D’Agostino-Petutti, RNGriffin Health, Derby, CT
Ashley D’Agostino-Petutti, RN
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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.

We trained Griffin’s professional caregivers with:

  • Guidelines
  • Best practices
  • Tips on what to write in Post-ICU

For us, training is not a one-way street though. We believe in sharing knowledge, and learning from the ICU staff as well. Training sessions take on a collaborative approach, in which Griffin’s staff is involved in creating their own guidelines. This collaborative training not only ensures staff buy-in, but will also result in better, well applicable guidelines. 

Navigating consent: have people give consent in multiple ways

The data that is entered and saved in the Post-ICU diary are of a very sensitive nature. 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.

Griffin Health has reported:

0.5%

Higher HCAHPS score

1

fewer phone call to the ICU per day

7 minutes

longer per day to spend on patient care

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