SYDNEY, N.S. — Before becoming a nursing student, Kelsey Muller recalls the difficulty around trying to reach a nurse for an update on a family member in hospital. After obtaining practical nursing experience she came to understand why those updates are difficult to get.
“We don’t necessarily have time to sit on a telephone call to update three or four family members of one patient,” the 27-year-old from Coxheath said.
“We can speak for all the nurses when we say it is an important factor and we try our hardest and best to do so, but depending on the illness of our patient and the time we need to spend caring for them kind of makes it more important to do that direct care.”
That combination of personal and professional experience inspired Muller and fellow Cape Breton University nursing student Michaela Moore to create a potential communications bridge between medical professionals and the families of their patients.
The Rest Assured web app idea they came up with offers real-time updates to family members about loved ones in hospital or a long-term care facility. Nurses save time by adding that information to this one source that’s accessible to multiple family members.
They pitched the idea at Techstars Startup Weekend last month and took home the country’s top prize.
Moore said the web app will offer things like basic general updates on nutrition, the emotional status of a patient, and activities of daily living. Questions on health and wellness that a family member might not think to ask during a stressful situation can also be answered without adding extra reporting or phone calls for nursing staff.
We can speak for all the nurses when we say it is an important factor and we try our hardest and best to do so, but depending on the illness of our patient and the time we need to spend caring for them kind of makes it more important to do that direct care. — Kelsey Muller
“It basically came from experiencing the problem from each end of the spectrum, so as a nursing student and the family member of an admitted loved one,” said Moore, a 25-year-old from Sydney River.
Their idea originated as a school project that caught the eyes of mentors Corinne McIsaac, a nursing professor, and Darren MacDonald, who suggested its entrance into the startup weekend competition that brings designers, developers, entrepreneurs and experts from various domains together.
“It’s very timely,” said MacDonald, the director of CBU’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre. “I think it’s a problem before COVID (pandemic) and now that we are in this place, it is even more important.”
MacDonald liked the idea from the get go and called it the latest in a long line of great ideas from the nursing students at CBU.
“The last two years we pitched a few (ideas) to the minister of health. I think out of last year’s class they implemented three within the health authority. Some are fairly simple like one was changing the colour of a tray to red if (a patient) was dehydrated. Very quickly someone could look, see a red tray and check on the patient for their hydration. It ranged from that to some of these apps and products.”
MacDonald thought that bringing Rest Assured to the Techstars competition would quickly help its creators gain business and entrepreneurial experience to help them move their idea forward.
The Moore and Muller idea emerged as the winner from more than 450 competitors who presented software-based solutions to COVID-19 related challenges and now gives them access to workshops, website design and podcast appearances.
They were also awarded a fellowship with Founder Institute Canada, tickets to the Collision From Home conference founded by Seth Rogan, tickets to the 2021 Traction Conference and tickets to the Startup Grind Global Conference in Silicon Valley.
Techstars weekends took place in 54 countries around the world and Moore and Muller are now waiting to see if their project will advance further in that competition.
In the meantime, they’ll search for a partner to help pilot the web app project.