Since winning the Nursing Times’ Rising Star Award (sponsored by FNF, NHS Professionals and NHS England (6C’s)) in 2014, Emma Selby has been ceaselessly exploring innovation in nursing, particularly focusing on digital developments. Now, just two years later, she has just finished developing ‘My Mind’ an Experience Based Co-Design App and Website for children with mental health conditions.
As a lite feature, anybody in the UK can download and use the App or website and it will take them to a resource Library signposting people to various digital supports including websites, apps and downloadable resources – all of which have been checked as being clinically sound. If a young person becomes open to a service commissioning the App then they can create a profile about themselves, see information about their clinician, complete and manage their own outcome measures and access their care plans from their phone or computer. From a clinician’s point of view, they can see the young person’s profile, can check on the outcome of their measures and also assign care plans.
A key point of the development is an instant messaging based service which means young people can message their clinician (and vice versa) instead of making calls, which young people said they preferred. They can also video time and attach images. Importantly, any written communication that happens within the App can be uploaded to the electronic patient record automatically within 24 hours, meaning that the clinician no longer needs to remember to document the conversation and the voice of the child is truly recorded. Equally, if a child is open to multiple clinicians then the clinicians are able to have conversations with each other using the technology and the notes will again be automatic. This meets many of the concerns from serious case reviews regarding communication and documentation.
Emma has just returned from the NHS Providers conference where she was showcasing the app and it was very well received. She said to FNF:
“It all started with that award and your conference was the first place I ever spoke – I like to think I have improved a lot since that first attempt! It’s wonderful to have been the lead inventor on such a large scale digital project and to show people that nursing innovation can be futuristic and that IT can be clinician led.”
Emma will continue to speak at more conferences over the coming months, and even has plans to extend the technology into other areas of nursing, so we are sure the My Mind App will continue to grow and improve patient care.
For more information on the My Mind website, click here.
To see the My Mind twitter page (@app_mymind), click here.