Brand Manager, Orlando Health
All too often, patients experiencing verbal and physical barriers to communication in the healthcare setting lack tools to easily communicate their needs, questions, and responses with their healthcare team and family. It can be challenging and time consuming for team members to determine what a patient wants, which can result in a patient’s needs not fully being met and frustration felt by both parties. Further, patients who have communication barriers are at risk of errors and complications, preventable adverse medical events, being excluded from decision making, and being dissatisfied with overall care, which has emotional, physical and financial implications. Ultimately, leaving patients without such tools is a problem that results in a poor patient experience, negative financial implications, and a lack of compliance with enterprise and national standards.
The idea for Arthur App came from an Orlando Health employee who experienced first hand not being able to communicate with a loved one. After surgery many years ago, Jen Foley’s father unexpectedly lost the ability to speak. After days of watching her frustrated father try in vain to communicate with those around him, she created a simple chart with the alphabet and common phrases. Soon after picking up the chart, her father pointed to the letters G-L-A-S-S-E-S. He simply needed his glasses. This experience became the inspiration for the Arthur app, which Jen named after her father, Arthur. Jen worked with Orlando Health’s Foundry program to design, develop and launch Arthur to benefit patients everywhere.
