Healthcare management and communication platform Oneview has recently announced that it will be deploying its new app, Oneview Connect, at Sydney Children’s Hospital Network, which is the largest network of hospitals and services for children in Australia. The app is designed to help patients and their caregivers not just while the patient is in the hospital, but also when the patient is at home. 

“At the heart of what we do is trying to provide patients with contextual, real-time information regardless of where they are in their journey,” James Fitter, CEO of Oneview, told MobiHealthNews. “While episodic [data] in a hospital is a really important part of patients’ experiences, it is the preoperative and post-discharge piece that has really been lacking.”

The app was first deployed in a trial run at the Sydney Children’s Hospital Network but will now be available to all patients at Children's Hospital at Westmead. 

“In trial, my biggest takeaway was how empowering it was for families to be able to include their own documentation and voice directly in the health record for the first time,” Cheryl McCullagh, director of clinical integrations at Sydney Children’s Hospital Network, said in an email to MobiHealthNews

The system is fully integrated into the hospital’s EHR, allowing patients to connect to their care team in realtime. However, it is not a messaging system, and when a patient sends a request to talk it is sent to everyone on the care team so that the appropriate person can respond. 

“It’s one of the only [apps] I’ve seen that lets clinicians and patients communicate in realtime. It also gives patients the ability to bring information back into the EHR,” McCullagh wrote. “Oneview’s app allows the patient voice to be authentically heard directly in the EMR in an unaltered way. And clinicians don’t have to work in a different system as it is fully integrated with the existing EHR workflow.”

It also covers practical matters as well, such as topics like where to park on the day of a surgery and directions to the hospital. 

“The notion of Connect is we want to be able to prepare a patient … and demystify everything, [even] where they should park,” Fitter said. 

Oneview started as an inpatient monitoring system but the leadership team said they saw a need for an outpatient care helper and noticed that a majority of patients and caregivers already have smartphones. 

“Much more care occurs at home as oppose to in the hospital, so it only makes sense to expand this interactive platform beyond the walls of the hospital. The app empowers patients and clinicians to adapt care in real time,” McCullagh wrote. 

Recently the company entered into a contract with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to deploy the Oneview Connect app.