GoCrew

Patient engagement for you and your crew

David Spiro

Digital Discharge Instructions Are Key to Better Care 

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The genesis of GoCrew was to improve communication. The Latin root of doctor, docere, means “to teach,” and, after diagnosis, the most important thing physicians can do is educate patients and families around their diagnoses and associated treatment plans. 

One often overlooked area of patient care is supporting patients as they leave the clinic. Studies have shown that 45-50% of patients or their caregivers don’t read or understand much of the complicated written post-care instructions they’re handed. These paper instructions have become more of a legal document than the educational tool they’re meant to be.  

As practicing Emergency Medicine physicians, we routinely see patients return to expensive emergency care because they simply did not understand their post-care instructions. Delivering the highest quality of care requires us to provide care for our patients and to educate them as well. Imagine going through the steps required to provide an accurate and thoughtful diagnosis, only to send the patient home with little information and education about how they can stay healthy moving forward? Not only is this frustrating for you as a provider, but the impact on the patient can go beyond frustration to lack of trust.  

This is one of the many reasons we launched GoCrew Health. Our team is innovating patient-provider communication by giving patients the ability to send and receive post-care instructions on their cellphones in a personal, HIPAA-compliant way.  

Imagine your patients stepping out of your office with a phone notification to check their chat history. Before they’re out of your parking lot, they’ve received a video message with their personalized post-care instructions. No physical paperwork. Just a video message they can reference at any time. They can also ask a family member to watch the video to help understand and implement treatment. 

GoCrew’s video discharge

Of course, every patient is different. A standardized post-care video message may work for one patient, but a customized post-care video accompanied with written instructions would be more beneficial for another. With GoCrew, providers also have options to customize their approach to care. Providers can: 

  • Record a quick video directly after a telehealth session to send to a patient in seconds. 
  • Create standard videos for the most common procedures to send at the end of face-to-face or telehealth visits. 
  • Upload documents for patients to read or print. 

GoCrew combines the best of technological advances with direct communication. Unread or misunderstood post-care instructions cause huge issues in medicine every single day. We’re addressing this missing piece of clinical practice by meeting patients where they are and seamlessly delivering the information they need. The result? Personalized patient-provider experiences and increased care adherence. 

The future of healthcare is mobile-first for better communication and education. We’re excited to be leading the way. 

Well-being begins with a strong patient and provider relationship

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Have you ever been in your doctor or dentist’s office and seen the pictures of patients taped to the wall? They could be milestone photos- graduations and birthdays – or holiday cards with the entire family.  

This is why most clinicians practice medicine. No, not for the photos (although we love them), but what they represent. We practice because the relationship we have with our patient and their family is not only central to their well-being but ours as well. Patient and provider satisfaction is not mutually exclusive.  

As a young doctor, I knew the importance of the relationship a family has with their pediatrician went a long way towards overall health. While working as a pediatrician in a small coastal town in Oregon, I regularly performed home visits. These home visits allowed me to not just diagnose a child’s condition, but also allowed me a glimpse into a family’s living situation- giving me a unique connection to the patient and their family. Over the past 25 years in practice, I’ve learned that the diagnosis and symptoms become secondary to authentically connecting with my patients, ensuring they feel heard and cared for.  

With the rise of healthcare consumerism, my team is seeing increased dependence on urgent and 3rd -party telehealth models that offer convenience but may not be tethered to a patient’s primary care provider. This concerns me for a few reasons: 

  1. Quality of healthcare and healthcare outcomes is diminished when a long-term relationship between a patient and a provider doesn’t exist. Entrusting the details of your health to a new provider every time is risky. This isn’t just about carrying detailed health records. It comes from the ongoing interactions with the patient and their family that allow you to see the family dynamic, which can greatly impact a person’s overall health. 
  2. Bi-directional communication is vital to the health of a patient. This is more than just a conversation. This is an understanding of what healthy looks like for that given patient. It also means understanding the importance of (or lack of) healthcare in their life.  
  3. Independent healthcare practices are unable to leverage new technology to compete with urgent care and 3rd party telehealth services.  

We founded GoCrew with the very simple mission to transform healthcare by strengthening the relationship between providers and their patients. GoCrew is an app-based HIPAA compliant virtual care platform built specifically and personalized for independent providers. While the patient is at the center of the healthcare experience, GoCrew allows the practice to better manage the quality and cost of their healthcare experience by giving the patient access to their doctor when and how they want. Patients can have access to their care teams in-clinic, via phone, text message, or via video visit, all managed through a single app. Patients can also receive follow-up care instructions and visit transcription, all at their fingertips. No more verbal instructions as you are walking out of a clinic. No more paper discharge instructions. 

Now with the GoCrew app, patients have peace of mind, knowing that their care team is there when, and how, they need them. And providers, like myself, can focus on connecting with patients in meaningful and efficient ways.