My Hospital

My Hospital is an app for patients at hospitals in the Region of Southern Denmark. The app was first released in 2014 and today, it is used by more than 40,000 patients with 375 different pathways – and more to come.

In My Hospital, patients can

• read information
• see pictures and videos
• keep a journal of condition and symptoms
• communicate with the hospital with chat messages, pictures and video
• enter data on weight, temperature, blood pressure and optionally share with the hospital
• keep an overview on appointments at the hospital

All functions are not available in all pathways, but where they are relevant. Some functions require login. General information on the pathway and the condition, instruction videos etc. can be accessed by everybody, but using the communication and registration tools requires access granted by the relevant department. The app is available for free for both iPhone and Android and can be used in a web version too.

My Hospital is patient empowerment put into practice, because the patients can be more involved int their own treatment and rehabilitation and thereby lead a more active role instead of just passively receiving treatment. The advantages of the app My Hospital are numerous:

• The texts are written by healthcare professionals. This means that the patient will find correct information on his/her condition and pathway at the hospital instead of risking to get lost with Google.
• It is easy to update the content, so outdated pamphlets can be avoided
• The patient can fill in data ahead of hospitalisation/consultation to avoid wasting time at the hospital and the healthcare personnel has the patient’s specific situation as a starting point for the consultation
• The patient can talk to the hospital via video and thereby avoid some trips to the hospital
• My Hospital results in fewer phone calls and thereby fewer interruptions for the hospital staff, because the patients can find the answers to their questions in the app
• The chat function enables communication with the hospital in a new and flexible manner; the patient can write whenever the question occurs and the hospital staff can answer when they have the time and have looked in the patient’s journal for instance
• My Hospital meets the patient where they are; online anytime and anywhere via the smartphone in their pockets

At the hospital, the app is connected with the electronic patient journal, so the hospital staff only have to log in to one system – the electronic patient journal – where all information on the patient is available. It is easy to set up when a hospital ward in the Region of Southern Denmark decide to use the app for a new pathway. The department merely decides which functions it needs for the particular group of patients and puts texts, pictures and video in the app. And then the app is ready to use for the patients.

My Hospital became more widely used in 2014 as part of a ph.d.-project funded by Syddansk Vækstforum and the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund as part of the innovation project GameLab4Health. In the Region of Southern Denmark, new parents are discharged after only four hours (by uncomplicated birth). This practice has created a need for easy communication with the new family when they have come home to inform them about caring for a newborn, breast feeding etc.