I became involved in Caringly by referral, contacted by the founder to provide UX Research and Design to solve problem they had observed based on real customer insights and high quality design.

From their training and time in the medical profession in India and the United States, these doctors-turned-entrepreneurs identified a dangerous gap in nursing and patient care. 

The handoff process between nurses at the time of shift change was stuck in the past, and worse was creating real risk and dangerous mistakes and omissions, jeopardizing patient care nationwide.

What is a hand-off?

A transfer and acceptance of patient care responsibility achieved through effective communication. It is a realtime process of passing patient specific information from one caregiver to another or from one team of caregivers to another for the purpose of ensuring the continuity and safety of the patient’s care.

Friction in Shift Report Systems

Electronic Medical Record Systems (EMRs) such as Epic are used by nearly all hospitals and medical facilities, and are vast, slow and information-dense.

They require focus and precision to enter and retrieve often critical details somewhere within a patient's records. Nurses reported that they use only a small fraction of available EMR features.

In fact, for hand-off the majority of nurses today still use a paper-based process such as Kardex, and have often even resort to creating their own informal systems to hand-off sometimes life-saving care details and daily events for each patient when they change shifts - including taking photos and texting information to their colleagues! Holy HIPAA!