New Tech Solution for Scheduling 20 Week Anatomy Scans for Expectant Moms – YellowSchedule have delivered the solution to ensure expectant moms can attend 20 week anatomy scan WITH their partners at Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH)
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about many challenges in healthcare none less than for expectant mothers who are feeling stressed having to attend 20 week scans alone. For most it should be a happy time full of memories of their first scans but this has been denied to them in support of a ensuring a safe and healthy environment for all. The pandemic gave maternity hospitals a variety of challenges including the scheduling of safe outpatient appointments and scans with no partners being allowed to accompany expectant mothers. BUT at CUMH they have teamed up with Yellow Schedule who have created a solution
Working together with Health Innovation Hub Ireland (HIHI) and CUMH, YellowSchedule created an invaluable solution for the CUMH with customised software design and modifications to their already in market product. Targeted design solutions were tailored to meet the specific requirements which included bottlenecks related to the flow of patients; the resource burden of operating a manual system; and most importantly during the pandemic consistent, reliable and timely contact tracing and mental wellbeing of patients. Partners have been excluded since the beginning of the pandemic, and with hospitals having their own criteria that has not been consistent countrywide regarding allowing visitors on compassionate grounds.
Only in operation a couple of weeks, feedback has been that YellowSchedule’s Intelligent Patient Scheduling Solution is extremely easy to use, pregnant women and their partners appreciate being able to screen online prior to their appointment and that scanning the QR code is easy and much quicker saving them time and ensuring their visit is more about seeing their new baby and making good memories.
Here is how the YellowSchedule system solved CUMH problem:
- YellowSchedule sends an SMS message to expectant mothers with upcoming 20 week anatomy scans inviting them to nominate a partner to attend.
- Both the woman and her nominated companion receive a Covid-19 screening questionnaire shortly before the upcoming appointment.
- This enables CUMH to identify any women with risk factors and channel them appropriately through the dedicated COVID pathway at the hospital and it also prevents any nominated visitors to the hospital who may have COVID-19 risk factors from presenting on-site.
- For everyone else they receive a QR code to enable them to scan through when they arrive for the appointment.
- This results in no queues of people filling in COVID screening forms on site.
- Staff have a record of who is due in for scans for the day, whether or not they’ve completed their COVID-19 screening and the status of that screening resulting in the hospital having a robust record for contact tracing purposes.
CUMH are also reintroducing visits post-delivery, YellowSchedule will automatically send an SMS to the nominated partner once the mother has been admitted as an in-patient enabling them to schedule post-delivery visits. The visitor will screen online for Covid-19 prior to arrival and check in via QR code at the check in kiosk at the entrance to the hospital.
Martina Skelly, CEO of Yellow Schedule said of the new system, “The Covid-19 pandemic has been especially hard on expecting couples, aside from the added stress around Covid-19 itself, pregnancy is a challenging time physically and emotionally. It’s fantastic to see maternity units start to open up access to scans and visits to support partners. It was clear from working with the project team at CUMH that their focus has been on getting partners back into the hospital in a secure, simple to use and efficient way, that would be easy for them to manage and not add more stress during an already stressful time ”.
YellowSchedule also responded to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic by providing another digital solution late last year at another Cork Hospital site by rolling out their unique visitor scheduling tools. The South Infirmary Victoria Hospital (SIVUH) part of the South/South West Hospital Group was faced like many other healthcare institutions across the country with a challenge, to re-introduce visiting in a way that was safe for patients, their visitors and the hospital staff. The added and continuing challenge during a pandemic was to retain a record of the visit for contact tracing purposes. HIHI met with YellowSchedule, who had a commercially available appointment system. The hub’s unique innovation pathway where HIHI supports a solution’s development from idea to bedside was set into action here. Targeted design solutions were tailored to meet the SIVUH requirements which included bottlenecks related to the flow of visitors; the re-source burden of a manual system; and consistent, reliable and timely contact tracing.
Dr. Tanya Mulcahy, National Manager, Health Innovation Hub Ireland welcomed the collaborative approach between HIHI, YellowSchedule and CUMH: “HIHI’s role is to provide innovative solutions to an unmet healthcare need. Yellow Schedule provides a seamless system that enables scheduling and tracking of hospital visitors in a safe and managed manner. HIHI has previously worked with YellowSchedule on the implementation of a patient visiting system in SIVUH, Cork. Our role was to broker the engagement, identifying what a solution should deliver and ensuring that SIVUH requirements were met”. Dr.Mulcahy continued; “In the case of CUMH, the collaborative approach was set in action again with HIHI working with YellowSchedule and the team at CUMH designing and piloting a solution for safe visitor attendance. YellowSchedule’s Intelligent Patient Scheduling Solution is proving invaluable to pregnant women and their partners at the hospital”.
