CardMedic
CardMedic makes healthcare make sense to patients with communication barriers. CardMedic is a mobile app delivering pre-scripted dialogue in numerous languages. CardMedic bridges gaps in communication support service provision.
CardMedic provides access to pre-scripted and pre-translated conversations between healthcare professionals and patients in multiple languages, easy read, read aloud, and sign language.
CardMedic bridges gaps in service provision when healthcare professionals are unable to communicate with their patients due to communication barriers.
Details
Supplied B2B SaaS, CardMedic is a digital communication support tool in the Health Equity space using web technologies to improve communication between frontline healthcare staff and patients.
CardMedic delivers a multi-lingual A-Z list of pre-written and pre-translated “flashcards”, replicating clinical conversations around common healthcare topics. All content is written by clinical experts in their field.
Available on mobile and desktop devices, at the heart of the product is a unique and rapidly growing multi-lingual library of content.
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Reducing health inequalities is the #1 strategic pillar of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in the US and equivalent organisations around the world.
At the point of care, communication issues are the #1 reason for health inequality for patients. As many as 50% of any patient demographic engaging with healthcare providers experience communication issues due to language, cognitive disorders, learning differences, hearing or sight loss, and problems related to their medical condition. When communication issues arise, patients receive the wrong care, partial care, or no care, leading to bad outcomes which are often avoidable, and delays.
Live human support services from speech and language therapists, translators, disability nurses and signers constitute the ‘gold’ standard solution. However, gaps in service provision happen daily, accessing services delays care and frequently introduces uncomfortable (or worse, culturally inappropriate) third party players to sensitive and confidential dialog. Achieving excellence in health equity with current solutions is impossible.
The reality of clinical practice means daily gaps in service provision – 89% of staff attest to experiencing communication issues with patients daily or weekly. Patients often have to rely on friends, family, carers, other members of staff, or machine translation, to translate complex and personal medical information, all of which is unethical and against NHS and governing bodies’ guidelines. Communication issues lead to health inequalities that are quantifiable in bad outcomes, delays, inefficient use of staff time, and increased costs.
Evidence
CardMedic is a ‘safety net’ when gaps in service provision occur, delivering ‘all-you-can-eat’ access to pre-scripted communication support for patients with differing abilities, capacities, languages and educational backgrounds.
CardMedic overcomes communication barriers: visual, hearing or cognitive impairment; foreign language; or PPE. Written by expert healthcare professionals, CardMedic is always on, providing Netflix-style unlimited use by unlimited users on unlimited devices for a fixed, rolling annual subscription.
Delays in emergencies can quickly mean the difference between life and death.
In cash terms, the returns on investment are found in staff resources, patient flow, and the costs of live translation services. In a 500 bed hospital with 2500 patient facing staff, if staff spend one minute per day dealing with communication issues with patients, that adds up over the year to the cost of multiple FTE staff members and 7 times the annual subscription for CardMedic. If there are 5 communication issues per day across the entire bed stock of 500 beds leading to delays in the provision or transfer of care, and one in ten of those ticks past midnight and triggers an extra day of stay, the costs to the hospital are 4x the cost of a subscription to CardMedic per annum. Saving 3 hours of live translation costs per day will save 12x the cost of CardMedic over the year. The price of an avoidable life lost, or any other kind of never event, is incalculable.
