Use of App Technology to Enhance Patient Experience in Maternal–Newborn Care

Abstract

Implementation of a customizable pregnancy app embedded in the parent education program began when nurse leaders reviewed literature and analyzed declining trends in attendance at parent education programs. Subjectively, prenatal care providers felt there were opportunities to standardize information among all obstetric providers. Pediatric health care providers felt parents were underinformed specifically about infant safe sleep and car-seat safety recommendations. With 94% of people ages 18–29 years owning smart phones, app technology was chosen to augment education for the targeted population. Customized app technology provides evidence-based content from sources that patients prefer: their provider, childbirth class instructors, the hospital, and professional Web site links. The implementation of the app is nurse driven and evaluated. The process of purchase, legal review, and customization took place from September 2016 to April 2017. Content review took place with all stakeholders during the customization process. A promotional card with an individual access code is provided at the first prenatal visit. Measure 1: App download and use since deployment May 2017. On average, app downloads have increased by 14% per month since initial deployment. There are four times as many active users today than in May–June 2017. Measure 2: childbirth and parent education class registration. To evaluate if the app served to increase, decrease, or have no impact on the childbirth education class sizes, class registration numbers were monitored. The app included reminders for childbirth and parent education class sign up, which were timed to specific gestation. Class attendance has increased by approximately 6 participants per class, which is statistically significant. Measure 3: patient experience. A pre- and postapp implementation comparison of patient satisfaction outcome scores from Press Ganey Associates were used to measure effect on patient experience. The following two questions were targeted for data collection: readiness for discharge and instructions for care at home. Preimplementation scores were 90.07% and 86.11%, respectively, for the targeted questions. Postimplementation scores were 93.32% and 91.18%, respectively, which were both found to be statistically significant. Through implementing app technology, nurses are driving innovation, fostering connections, impacting patient satisfaction, and improving outcomes.